Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Morteza Dehghani @mdehghani.bsky.social · Sep 8

We're looking for a PhD in Computer Science, Psychology, or Political Science with a strong computational background. ($84-85k salary).

usccareers.usc.edu/job/los-ange...

Happy to answer any questions!

#postdoc #hiring #USC #AI #ComputationalSocialScience #AIforGood

Postdoctoral Scholar - Research Associate at USC

Learn more about applying for Postdoctoral Scholar - Research Associate at USC

usccareers.usc.edu

Morteza Dehghani @mdehghani.bsky.social · Sep 8

Come work with us at USC! We're hiring an NSF-funded Postdoc for the Everyday Respect Project. 🤖

You'll work directly with me, Ben Graham, and Shri Narayanan, using cutting-edge AI to analyze police body-worn camera footage to improve police-community relations.

Postdoctoral Scholar - Research Associate at USC

Learn more about applying for Postdoctoral Scholar - Research Associate at USC

usccareers.usc.edu

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Payam Piray @payampiray.bsky.social · Aug 12

New paper with @nathanieldaw.bsky.social in Nature Communications: an RL model that builds a successor map compositionally. The new model plans as well as the best models, and it links components of the map used for planning to neural codes in the medial entorhinal cortex.
rdcu.be/eAofi

Reconciling flexibility and efficiency: medial entorhinal cortex represents a compositional cognitive map

Nature Communications - How the brain creates compositional cognitive maps that support both flexible and efficient planning remains poorly understood. Here, authors propose a...

rdcu.be

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The New York Times @nytimes.com · Oct 6

Narges Mohammadi, an Iranian activist who is serving a 10-year sentence in Tehran, was awarded the 2023 Nobel Peace Prize on Friday “for her fight against the oppression of women in Iran and her fight to promote human rights and freedom for all.” nyti.ms/3Q6O3sL

Narges Mohammadi, an Iranian activist who is serving a 10-year sentence in Tehran, was named as the recipient of the 2023 Nobel Peace Prize on Friday “for her fight against the oppression of women in Iran and her fight to promote human rights and freedom for all.”

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Suhaib Abdurahman @sabdurah.bsky.social · Nov 15

New Preprint: "Perils and Opportunities in Using Large Language Models in Psychological Research." osf.io/tg79n

@mdehghani.bsky.social @aliomrani.bsky.social @mohammadatari.bsky.social

osf.io

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Nils Reimer @reimtime.bsky.social · Nov 16

I am recruiting Ph.D. students to join our Social Injustice and Social Change group at UCSB! You still have until December 1 to apply. Application fee waiver are available (for qualified domestic applicants).

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Elnaz Rahmati @elnaz-rahmati.bsky.social · Feb 20

Read our latest work CoCo-CoLa on measuring and improving language adherence in multilingual LLMs with efficient fine-tuning. 📖 arxiv.org/abs/2502.12476
Thanks to my co-authors @alirezaziabari.bsky.social and @mdehghani.bsky.social
for their collaboration!
#LLMs #NLP #Multilinguality

CoCo-CoLa: Evaluating Language Adherence in Multilingual LLMs

Multilingual Large Language Models (LLMs) develop cross-lingual abilities despite being trained on limited parallel data. However, they often struggle to generate responses in the intended language, f...

arxiv.org

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Andrea Vial @avial.bsky.social · Jul 25

🔥Excited to share our new paper in PsychScience! Shout out to best-ever collaborators Aida Davani, @ruyuan-zuo.bsky.social, @shreyahavaldar.bsky.social, Eleanor Chestnut, @mdehghani.bsky.social & @andreicimpian.bsky.social 🧵1/8…
doi.org/10.1177/0956...

Syntactic and Semantic Gender Biases in the Language on Children’s Television: Evidence From a Corpus of 98 Shows From 1960 to 2018 - Andrea C. Vial, Aida Mostafazadeh Davani, Ruyuan Zuo, Shreya Haval...

Biased media content shapes children’s social concepts and identities. We examined gender bias in a large corpus of scripts from 98 children’s television progra...

doi.org

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Morteza Dehghani @mdehghani.bsky.social · Jun 28

Understanding this dynamic is crucial. External calls for regime change often backfire, strengthening the regime's narrative. The path forward is a psychological shift, not a political one. (2/2)

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Morteza Dehghani @mdehghani.bsky.social · Jun 28

My new op-ed in the @nytimes.

I argue that Iranians are caught in a state of “moral paralysis,” a psychological trap set by the Islamic Republic itself. It pits two of our most sacred values against each other: liberation vs. self-determination. (1/2) www.nytimes.com/2025/06/28/o...

Opinion | The Moral Paralysis Facing Iranians Right Now

www.nytimes.com

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Morteza Dehghani @mdehghani.bsky.social · Jun 13

Check up on your Iranian colleagues and students; this is a full-on war!

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Mehdi Hasan @mehdirhasan.bsky.social · Jun 4

Watch this montage of clips from Israel's Channel 14, filled with racist and genocidal bile, shocking stuff, ask yourself why you don't see these clips on US or UK mainstream news, and then read Prem's deep dive for Zeteo into Channel 14:
zeteo.com/p/inside-the...

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Morteza Dehghani @mdehghani.bsky.social · May 19

PhD preferred.

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Morteza Dehghani @mdehghani.bsky.social · May 17

This position is remote and can be anywhere in the U.S. If interested, send me a resume. I won’t be able to respond to all messages.

Morteza Dehghani @mdehghani.bsky.social · May 17

This is a unique opportunity to contribute fundamental research, while also applying and operationalizing your findings to build cutting-edge AI evaluation systems in a fast-paced, impactful environment!

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Morteza Dehghani @mdehghani.bsky.social · May 17

We’re looking for a researcher to work on methods and building tools for AI evaluation. We are seeking candidates with expertise at the intersection of agentic systems and personalization, demonstrated by a strong publication record in relevant venues.

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Jeremy Ginges @jeremyginges.bsky.social · May 16

This is what Leibowitz was warning about when he referred to Judeo Nazis www.hrw.org/news/2025/05...

Gaza: Latest Israeli Plan Inches Closer to Extermination

The Israeli government’s plan to demolish what remains of Gaza’s civilian infrastructure and concentrate the Palestinian population into a tiny area would amount to an abhorrent escalation of its ongo...

www.hrw.org

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Morteza Dehghani @mdehghani.bsky.social · Apr 19

I am very sorry to hear that, Maddy.

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Phil Klay @philklay.bsky.social · Apr 5

“There is no God but God, Muhammad is his messenger,” the paramedic is heard saying. He asks God for forgiveness and says he knows he is going to die.

“Forgive me, mother. This is the path I chose — to help people,” he said. “Allahu akbar,” God is great, he says.

www.nytimes.com/2025/04/04/w...

Video Shows Aid Workers Killed in Gaza Under Gunfire Barrage, With Ambulance Lights On

www.nytimes.com

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Prem Thakker ツ @premthakker.bsky.social · Mar 24

BREAKING: Yuval Abraham, co-director of Oscar-winning documentary "No Other Land," says Israeli settlers beat his co-director Hamdan Ballal, injuring his head and stomach — and then Israeli soldiers invaded the ambulance he was in and seized him.

Ballal's whereabouts are now unknown.

Tweet from Yuval Abraham:
"A group of settlers just lynched Hamdan Ballal, co director of our film no other land. They beat him and he has injuries in his head and stomach, bleeding. Soldiers invaded the ambulance he called, and took him. No sign of him since."

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Morteza Dehghani @mdehghani.bsky.social · Mar 16

Such a great read! Thanks

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Morteza Dehghani @mdehghani.bsky.social · Mar 16

Anyway to share a version outside the paywall?

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Morteza Dehghani @mdehghani.bsky.social · Mar 14

Very similar to the Islamic Republic

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LingProf @lingprof.bsky.social · Feb 28

So Cal Stand Up for Science: Fri Mar 7 noon @the Wilshire Federal Building

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Morteza Dehghani @mdehghani.bsky.social · Feb 25

The paper covers key considerations for using LLMs, including transparency, validation, and dealing with model updates. We also provide a checklist for ensuring high-quality research. This work was led by @sabdurah.bsky.social and @alirezaziabari.bsky.social

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Morteza Dehghani @mdehghani.bsky.social · Feb 25

At @spspnews.bsky.social, many asked for guidelines on using LLMs in the social sciences. Our new paper in AMPPS addresses exactly that! We provide a primer for evaluating LLMs in social science research, focusing on methodological rigor, replicability, and validity: osf.io/preprints/ps...

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Morteza Dehghani @mdehghani.bsky.social · Feb 24

Our new paper in PNAS Nexus. County morals > politics for carbon footprints? 🤯 We find that county-level values predict actual green behavior (emissions!), not just attitudes. Stronger than political leaning.

PNAS Nexus @pnasnexus.org · Feb 18

A study finds that moral values predict environmental action as well as or better than political party affiliation. US counties where residents prioritize purity and fairness report higher environmental concerns and lower carbon emissions. In PNAS Nexus: academic.oup.com/pnasnexus/ar...

A woman with pro-environmental signs. Stock photo.

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Morteza Dehghani @mdehghani.bsky.social · Feb 20

Very cool work on the intersection of interpretability and multi-lingual LLMs, led by @elnaz-rahmati.bsky.social

Elnaz Rahmati @elnaz-rahmati.bsky.social · Feb 20

Read our latest work CoCo-CoLa on measuring and improving language adherence in multilingual LLMs with efficient fine-tuning. 📖 arxiv.org/abs/2502.12476
Thanks to my co-authors @alirezaziabari.bsky.social and @mdehghani.bsky.social
for their collaboration!
#LLMs #NLP #Multilinguality

CoCo-CoLa: Evaluating Language Adherence in Multilingual LLMs

Multilingual Large Language Models (LLMs) develop cross-lingual abilities despite being trained on limited parallel data. However, they often struggle to generate responses in the intended language, f...

arxiv.org

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Morteza Dehghani @mdehghani.bsky.social · Feb 19

This project was led by @alirezaziabari.bsky.social bari.bsky.social and Nona Ghazizadeh, with collaborations with @zhpinkman.bsky.social ky.social, Farzan Karimi-Malekabadi, and @payampiray.bsky.social

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Morteza Dehghani @mdehghani.bsky.social · Feb 19

Key Findings:

Accuracy-efficiency trade-off: System 2-aligned models excelled in arithmetic and symbolic reasoning, while System 1 models were better at commonsense reasoning.

Uncertainty and confidence: System 2 models showed greater uncertainty, while System 1 models were more confident.

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