Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Matthew Salganik @msalganik.bsky.social · Aug 27

Univ of Rhode Island has an open rank faculty position in the Dept of Political Science to lead their new PhD program in Computational Social Science. jobs.uri.edu/postings/15597

7 7

Reposted by Matthew Salganik

California Center For Population Research @ccpratucla.bsky.social · Apr 25

Applications are open for the Summer Institute in Computational Social Science SICSS 2025 at UCLA! Apply by May 2!

Free, 2-wk institute in comp social science for grad students, postdocs & early-career faculty.

sicss.io/2025/ucla/
@ianlundberg.bsky.social @jenniebrand.bsky.social

8 12

Matthew Salganik @msalganik.bsky.social · Apr 21

I'll be giving a talk about my research Tues, Apr 22 at Princeton Center for Statistics & Machine Learning: "With enough data and the right algorithms is your future predictable? Some evidence from LLMs and complete population-scale data" More info: csml.princeton.edu/events/enoug...

12

Matthew Salganik @msalganik.bsky.social · Apr 1

Happy to share the results and open-source code for our benchmark test of GPUs in secure computing environment. Thank you to our wonderful colleagues at ‪@esciencecenter.bsky.social‬. Code is open-sourced for others to use and improve. No private data required.

Netherlands eScience Center @esciencecenter.bsky.social · Apr 1

In the latest blog, we learn how the open-source benchmark compares training speed across different supercomputers, including secure environments. Key takeaways? Hardware differences drive performance gaps and multi-GPU scaling is efficient. Learn more:

Medium

medium.com

5

Matthew Salganik @msalganik.bsky.social · Mar 24

I'll be speaking Friday at noon about national population registries, large language models & prediction health. If you are in town you are welcome to attend: pph.princeton.edu/events/2025/...

National population registries, large language models, and precision health

This talk will present our interdisciplinary, international collaboration exploring the genetic, social, and environmental factors shaping human health. Our approach leverages two innovations: 1) secu...

pph.princeton.edu

7

Matthew Salganik @msalganik.bsky.social · Mar 24

I'm excited to be a part of the new Princeton Precision Health initiative. Here's more about what we are doing: www.princeton.edu/news/2025/03...

Princeton Precision Health: An interdisciplinary, AI-driven approach to tackling big questions about health and disease

PPH researchers apply cutting-edge AI and computational models to massive datasets to develop a deep understanding of the factors that shape health and illness.

www.princeton.edu

1 4

Matthew Salganik @msalganik.bsky.social · Mar 24

I don't think anyone tried to predict the next wave, but we did in-depth qualitative interviews to try to understand the origins of unpredictability: www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

The origins of unpredictability in life outcome prediction tasks | PNAS

Why are some life outcomes difficult to predict? We investigated this question through in-depth qualitative interviews with 40 families sampled fro...

www.pnas.org

1

Reposted by Matthew Salganik

Stephan Rabanser @stvrb.bsky.social · Mar 10

Starting off this account with a banger: In September 2025, I will be joining @princetoncitp.bsky.social at Princeton University as a Postdoc working with @randomwalker.bsky.social & @msalganik.bsky.social! I am very excited about this opportunity to continue my work on trustworthy/reliable ML! 🥳

2 13

Matthew Salganik @msalganik.bsky.social · Mar 8

Opening at Columbia for a postdoc to "help build machine-learning models to understand the relationship between social conditions and entrepreneurship at the neighborhood level." apply.interfolio.com/162500

3 5

Matthew Salganik @msalganik.bsky.social · Feb 26

This is a great opportunity . . .

Chris Bail @chrisbail.bsky.social · Feb 24

Want to learn about computational social science *for free* and launch interdisciplinary research projects? We are so excited to announce there will be *26* Summer Institutes in Computational Social Science this year! Apply to one of them here: sicss.io/locations

4

Matthew Salganik @msalganik.bsky.social · Feb 26

Faculty of Social Sciences at Univ. of Helsinki invites applications for the position of UNIVERSITY LECTURER IN SOCIAL DATA SCIENCE for a permanent appointment starting 1st of September 2025. jobs.helsinki.fi/job/Helsinki...

University Lecturer in Social Data Science

jobs.helsinki.fi

8 15

Matthew Salganik @msalganik.bsky.social · Feb 21

Sloan Foundation/UKRI postdoc on metascience and AI. For researchers in the social sciences & humanities who are interested in building a career in understanding the implications of AI for the science & research ecosystem. sloan.org/programs/dig...

Call for submissions: Metascience and AI postdoctoral fellowship | Alfred P. Sloan Foundation

Our mission is to make the world a better place through the advancement of scientific knowledge.

sloan.org

10 9

Reposted by Matthew Salganik

Gabor Csardi @gaborcsardi.org · Feb 17

Which of these features would you like us to implement first in the nanoparquet R package?

See options below.

#RStats #parquet nanoparquet.r-lib.org

Read and Write Parquet Files

Self-sufficient reader and writer for flat Parquet files. Can read most Parquet data types. Can write many R data types, including factors and temporal types. See docs for limitations.

nanoparquet.r-lib.org

3 20 23

Reposted by Matthew Salganik

Fernando Diaz @841io.bsky.social · Feb 13

🎉Microsoft Research New England is hiring a predoctoral research assistant to work with @nancybaym.bsky.social, Tarleton Gillespie, and @marylgray.bsky.social on issues related to the dynamics of technology and society. 🎉

socialmediacollective.org/2025/01/22/s...

Seeking a Sociotechnical Systems Research Assistant (aka “Pre-Doc”)

Apply here: (NOTE: Application Portal opens February 3, 2025) Deadline: March 3, 2025. (Late or incomplete applications will not be considered.) NOTE: Unfortunately, applicants must be eligib…

socialmediacollective.org

18 25

Reposted by Matthew Salganik

Manoel Horta Ribeiro @manoelhortaribeiro.bsky.social · Jan 20

I'm teaching my first course! A seminar on "Machine Behavior."

Readings are a mix of NLP, CSS-y, and ML work on how machines (focus LLMs) "behave" within sociotechnical systems and on how they can be used to study human behavior.

Syllabus: manoelhortaribeiro.github.io/teaching/spr...

3 8 47

Reposted by Matthew Salganik

Princeton Center for Information Technology Policy @princetoncitp.bsky.social · Jan 16

Feels fitting to have our very first-ever post be to celebrate two #CITP Associated Faculty members, Professor Aleksandra Korolova & Professor Olga Russakovsky, who were both awarded the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists & Engineers from the White House this week! 🎉 💯 📖

#womeninSTEM

graphic with text + two separate portraits of two smiling faculty members

4 12

Matthew Salganik @msalganik.bsky.social · Jan 8

No plans for a 2nd edition of Bit by Bit. I'm - slowly - working on a new book on a different topic. It took me years to write Bit by Bit, & I think this new book will take even longer . . . but let's hope not.

1 2

Matthew Salganik @msalganik.bsky.social · Jan 7

Ethics doesn't have to be too abstract. You can lead with real examples from real CSS research that have sparked debate and then show students how to reason about them.

1 1

Matthew Salganik @msalganik.bsky.social · Jan 7

Here are some other teaching materials from people using Bit by Bit in their classes: www.bitbybitbook.com/en/teaching/

Bit By Bit: Social Research in the Digital Age

www.bitbybitbook.com

1 2 7

Matthew Salganik @msalganik.bsky.social · Jan 7

At Summer Institutes in Computational Social Science (SICSS) we did ethics first & it worked well. It was a good way to get people talking and exposed to different disciplinary norms, both of which are good for learning. Here's what we did at SICSS: sicss.io/2021/princet...

Schedule

sicss.io

2 5

Matthew Salganik @msalganik.bsky.social · Dec 22

Postdoc opportunities at the Knowledge Lab at U Chicago. Application review begins Jan 31. form.jotform.com/241295631499...

14 26

Matthew Salganik @msalganik.bsky.social · Dec 18

Applications open for the SICSS-ODISSEI summer school at Erasmus University. For PhD students, post-docs and early career researchers interested in computational social science. More info: odissei-data.nl/event/sicss-...

SICSS-ODISSEI Summer School 2025 - ODISSEI – Open Data Infrastructure for Social Science and Economic Innovations

From 16 to 27 June 2024, ODISSEI is hosting its fourth summer school at Erasmus University in Rotterdam, as part of the Summer Institutes in Computational Social Science (SICSS) and the Erasmus Gradua...

odissei-data.nl

8 11

Matthew Salganik @msalganik.bsky.social · Dec 11

"Tooling Together: Advancing Research Through Collaborative Tool Development in the Information Environment" Share what you have, learn what is possible, and connect to a community. Jan 24 online. docs.google.com/forms/d/1gwT...

1

Reposted by Matthew Salganik

Dirk Eddelbuettel @eddelbuettel.com · Dec 6

RcppArmadillo 14.2.2-1 on CRAN: Small Upstream Fixes
R bindings to powerful and expressive C++ matrix library
dirk.eddelbuettel.com/blog/2024/12...
#rcpp #rstats #r

Screenshot of blog post at https://dirk.eddelbuettel.com/blog/2024/12/06#rcpparmadillo_14.2.2-1 describing release 14.2.2-1 of CRAN package RcppArmadillo

3 10

Reposted by Matthew Salganik

Arvind Narayanan @randomwalker.bsky.social · Dec 2

📢 📢 Come join our vibrant interdisciplinary group of about 40 scholars at the Princeton Center for Information Technology Policy working to understand and improve the relationship between technology and society. We are looking at all levels: 🧵

3 19 51