Computer Science Seminar

  • November 18, 2022
  • 12:00 PM - 2:00 CST
  • McCormick Lounge (Coffey Hall)
  • Mohammed Abuhamad, mabuhamad@luc.edu
  • Not open to the public.
  • Add to calendar
  • Details

    Hi everyone,

    Next Friday, November 18, the Computer Science Department will be hosting a CS Seminar Series featuring various exciting speakers covering topics related to the field (see below for Friday's speaker bios and talk abstracts). Please RSVP your attendance to this event by Wednesday, November 16, to enjoy a meal, social, and two talks by Dr. Yasin Silva and Jon McLachlan. Thank you, and we'll see you there! -Mohammed


    Schedule:
    12:00 - 12:30 PM - Lunch and Social
    12:30 - 01:15 PM - Talk by Dr. Yasin Silva (Loyola University Chicago)
    01:15 - 02:00 PM - Talk by Jon McLachlan (Tola Capital & The Security Podcast of Silicon Valley)


    #WashTheHate: Understanding the Prevalence of Anti-Asian Prejudice on Twitter During COVID-19
    Talk by: Dr. Yasin Silva

    Abstract: Prejudice and hate directed toward Asian individuals has increased in prevalence and salience during the COVID-19 pandemic, with notable rises in physical violence. In the last two years, as many governments enacted stay-at-home mandates, the spread of anti-Asian content increased in online spaces, including social media. In this study, we investigated temporal and geographical patterns in social media content relevant to anti-Asian prejudice during the COVID-19 pandemic. Using the Twitter Data Collection API, we queried over 13 million tweets posted between January 30, 2020, and April 30, 2021, for both negative (e.g., #kungflu) and positive (e.g., #stopAAPIhate) hashtags and keywords related to anti-Asian prejudice. In a series of descriptive analyses, we found differences in the frequency of negative and positive keywords based on geographic location. Using burst detection, we also identified distinct increases in negative and positive content in relation to key political tweets and events. These largely exploratory analyses shed light on the role of social media in the expression and proliferation of prejudice as well as positive responses online.

    Speaker Bio: Yasin (Yas) N. Silva is an associate professor in the Computer Science department at Loyola University (Chicago). He received his doctorate (2010) and master's degree (2006) in computer science from Purdue University. Before joining Loyola in 2022, Dr. Silva worked as assistant and associate professor at Arizona State University since 2010. Dr. Silva's research focuses on innovative ways to analyze and process data. More specifically, he has been working in the areas of social media analysis, online misbehavior detection, social computing, cyberbullying detection in social networks, big data, similarity-aware data analysis, scalable database systems, and fairness and transparency in AI. He has published many papers in top tier conference proceedings and journals in computer science such as ACM SIGMOD, VLDB, IEEE ICDE, WSDM, SIAM SDM, IJCAI, IEEE TKDE, and the VLDB Journal. Dr. Silva has presented at many national and international conferences and has also been invited as keynote speaker and presenter by prominent data analytics research groups. Dr. Silva received the Outstanding Innovation Award at ASU (2018), the Motorola Scholarship for Entrepreneurship and was also inducted into Upsilon Pi Epsilon, the International Honor Society for the Computer Sciences.



    The Future of Security and Privacy in a Capitalist Society
    Talk by: Jon McLachlan

    Abstract: What's the future of security and privacy in an increasingly insecure and public capitalistic society? What role does it play in shaping consumer markets in technology and B2C plays? How do these forces create new opportunities for innovation? How do you spot these opportunities? Why don't big players just do it? As Computer Science leaders, how do we position ourselves as part of the change we want to see in the world? Join me as we tease out sane directions for these critical questions. Please connect with me on LinkedIn, follow my podcast, or invite me to a coffee in San Francisco.

    About the Speaker from LinkedIn:
    I get irrationally excited about all things security, but at the end of the day, it's people that really matter. I also host The Security Podcast of Silicon Valley, where you can discover real people, overcoming real security problems. I facilitate a shame-free space to engage in open and honest discussions about what's going on in security. Interviews are about 30 minutes in length and explore thought-provoking dilemmas and opportunities faced by real entrepreneurs, operators, engineers, and leaders. Join us and catch a glimpse into the proven technologies and techniques that solve real security problems, today.


    Thanks,
    Assistant Professor of Computer Science
    Department of Computer Science
    Loyola University Chicago
    308 Doyle Center, Lake Shore Campus
    1052 W Loyola Ave. Chicago, IL 60626
    Web: abuhamad.cs.luc.edu
    Email: mabuhamad@luc.edu
    Phone: 773-508-3557