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The Interdisciplinary Institute for Societal Computing offers a regular Lecture Series to bring together researchers of different academic fields to analyze and discuss the broad topic of society and technology. The Lecture Series is designed as a laboratory of interdisciplinary research to encourage cooperation and new research approaches. The series will feature a mix of speakers from Computer Science, Social Science, and Digital Humanities.
October 17, 2025
Indira Sen (Computational Social Science, University of Mannheim)
TBD
November 7, 2025
Juhi Kulshrestha (Computational Social Science, Aalto University)
TBD
November 21, 2025
Isabel Valera (Computer Science, Saarland University)
Society-centered AI: An Integrative Perspective on Algorithmic Fairness
November 28, 2025
Christof Schöch (Digital Humanities, University of Trier)
TBD
January 9, 2025
TBD
TBD
January 23, 2025
TBD
TBD
February 6, 2025
Édith Darin (Demographic Science, University of Oxford)
Statistical innovation for population estimation: integrating administrative records, geospatial data, and real-time streams
The Lecture Series is in building E1 7, Room 3.23, on the campus of Saarland University from 12h-13h.
If you want to meet one of our speakers on the day of the event, please contact us: hello[@]i2sc.net
If you are interested in our events and want to stay up to date, please subscribe to our mailing list here.
For Guest lectures not from the lecture series, please check our Guest Lectures page.
October 17, 2025
TBD
TBD
November 7, 2025
TBD
TBD
November 21, 2025
Society-centered AI: An Integrative Perspective on Algorithmic Fairness
In this talk, I will share my never-ending learning journey on algorithmic fairness. I will give an overview of fairness in algorithmic decision-making, reviewing the progress and wrong assumptions made along the way, which have led to new and fascinating research questions. Most of these questions remain open to this day and become even more challenging in the era of generative AI. Thus, this talk will provide only a few answers but many open challenges to motivate the need for a paradigm shift from owner-centered to society-centered AI. With society-centered AI, I aim to bring the values, goals, and needs of all relevant stakeholders into AI development as first-class citizens to ensure that these new technologies are at the service of society.
November 28, 2025
TBD
TBD
TBD
January 23, 2025
TBD
TBD
February 6, 2025
Statistical innovation for population estimation: integrating administrative records, geospatial data, and real-time streams
Reliable subnational population estimates are essential for effective governance, service provision, and humanitarian response, yet many low- and middle-income countries lack recent or comprehensive census data. This talk explores emerging strategies for estimating population counts when traditional sources are unavailable. I will focus on the integration of diverse and incomplete data sources—including administrative records (e.g., health, education), satellite imagery, and geospatial covariates—combined through Bayesian modeling frameworks to generate high-resolution estimates. In the second part of the talk, I will extend these methods to the problem of nowcasting population distributions in crisis contexts, including forced displacement and conflict. Here, I will explore the utility of real-time or near real-time data streams—such as mobile phone metadata, satellite-derived indicators, and social media signals—for capturing rapid demographic shifts at fine spatial and temporal scales. Throughout the talk, I will emphasize not only the technical and methodological advances enabled by the digital data but also the ethical considerations around data use, privacy, and representation.