AI Tools and Research Methods for Social and Behavioral Science Symposium
Join the Northeastern University summit on the use of AI technologies in research and scholarship. This event will feature a keynote talk by Chris Bail and lightning talks on novel uses for artificial intelligence in social science research. Lunch will be served.
Keynote Speaker
Chris Bail
Director of the Society-Centered AI Initiative, Duke University
Chris Bail is the director of the Society-Centered AI Initiative and co-director of the Polarization Lab at Duke University. His research centers around the impact of artificial intelligence on human behavior, with a specific focus on social media. His current work aims to create frameworks to effectively use large-language models within computational social science research.
Bail’s work in human-AI interaction has influenced a variety of changes in the social sphere, from influencing new policies to combat polarization and misinformation on Twitter to inspiring new products for AI-assisted conflict media on NextDoor.
Featured Publication: Bail, Christopher A. "Can Generative AI improve social science?." Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 121, no. 21 (2024): e2314021121.
Featured Speakers
John Basl
Associate Professor of Philosophy, Northeastern University
Featured Publication: Basl, John, and David G. Grant. "Explainability in Algorithmic Decision Systems." A Companion to Applied Philosophy of AI (2025): 82-103.
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/9781394238651.ch7
Rupal Patel
Professor of Communication Sciences and Disorders, Northeastern University
Featured Publication: Patel, Rupal. "Voice Tech: Generating and Understanding the Sound of Health." Leader Live (2025).
Nick Beauchamp
Associate Professor of Political Science, Northeastern University
Featured Publication: Zhang, Xinliang Frederick, Nick Beauchamp, and Lu Wang. "Prime: Large language model personalization with cognitive dual-memory and personalized thought process." In Proceedings of the 2025 Conference on Empirical Methods in Natural Language Processing, pp. 33695-33724. 2025.
Mauricio Santillana
Professor of Physics, Northeastern University
Featured Publication: Liu, Dianbo, Won-Yong Shin, Eli Sprecher, Kathleen Conroy, Omar Santiago, Gal Wachtel, and Mauricio Santillana. "Machine learning approaches to predicting no-shows in pediatric medical appointment." NPJ digital medicine 5, no. 1 (2022): 50.
Babak Heydari
Associate Professor of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering, Northeastern University
Featured Publication: Chen, Qiliang, and Babak Heydari. "Architecting Adaptive Networks: Reinforcement Learning with Generative Policies for Multi-Agent Governance." Journal of Mechanical Design 148, no. 1 (2026): 011701.
https://asmedigitalcollection.asme.org/mechanicaldesign/article/doi/10.1115/1.4070755/1229782
Alan Mislove
Professor of Computer Science, Northeastern University
Featured Publication: Kaplan, Levi, Nicole Gerzon, Alan Mislove, and Piotr Sapiezynski. "Measurement and analysis of implied identity in ad delivery optimization." In Proceedings of the 22nd ACM Internet Measurement Conference, pp. 195-209. 2022.
Sunny Yang
Assistant Professor of Political Science and Communication Studies, Northeastern University
Featured Publication: Yang, Seo Eun, James D. Wilson, Zhong-Lin Lu, and Skyler Cranmer. "Functional connectivity signatures of political ideology." PNAS nexus 1, no. 3 (2022): pgac066.
https://academic.oup.com/pnasnexus/article/1/3/pgac066/6590843
Nabeel Gillani
Assistant Professor, Design & Data Analysis and Marketing, Northeastern University
Featured Publication: Overney, Cassandra, Hang Jiang, Urooj Haider, Cassandra Moe, Jasmine Mangat, Frank Pantano, Effie G. McMillian, Paul Riggins, and Nabeel Gillani. "Human-AI Narrative Synthesis to Foster Shared Understanding in Civic Decision-Making." arXiv preprint arXiv:2509.19643 (2025).
Denise Garcia
Professor of Political Science and International Affairs, Northeastern University
Featured Publication: Garcia, Denise. "Algorithms and decision-making in military artificial intelligence." Global Society 38, no. 1 (2024): 24-33.
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13600826.2023.2273484
Samuel Scarpino
Director of AI + Life Sciences, Institute for Experiential AI, Northeastern University
Featured Publication: Kraemer, Moritz UG, et al. "Artificial intelligence for modelling infectious disease epidemics." Nature 638.8051 (2025): 623-635.
David Bau
Professor of Computer Science, Northeastern University
Featured Publication: Ahsan, Hiba, Arnab Sen Sharma, Silvio Amir, David Bau, and Byron C. Wallace. "Elucidating Mechanisms of Demographic Bias in LLMs for Healthcare." arXiv preprint arXiv:2502.13319 (2025).
Hilary Robinson
Associate Professor of Law and Sociology, Northeastern University
Featured Publication: Kunind Sharma, Lidong Chen, Michael Jane, Ozlem Ergun, Hilary Robinson, Hannah Johnston, Christopher Tirrell. “Simulations to Study Workers, Regulations, and Platforms in the Gig Economy.” Proceedings of the 21st International Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems. May 9-13, Auckland, New Zealand.
https://guaguakai.github.io/aasg2022/assets/AASG2022_paper_7.pdf