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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. 

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Event Information

Date:

January 30, 2026

Time:

10:00 AM

2:00 PM

Location:

40 Leon Street, Boston, MA

Cost:

Free for Northeastern Students and Faculty

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. 


https://www.pnas.org/doi/abs/10.1073/pnas.2314021121







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.

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. 



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