Past Seminars

The archive of all our previous seminars

After every seminar, whether you were present or not, you want to come here! You will find all the information about each seminar below, including a fantastic blog. In this blog you will find highlights of the key points of the talks, useful resources for everyday PhD life and some food for thoughts from our biweekly conversations. Notice that the conversations had during our seminars are mostly unrelated to the research title of the talk. They are actually related to challenges in Academia and PhD life.

Moreover, if the speaker allows to record, the recording of the session is uploaded on Youtube, and available to access from our YouTube channel. Each blog is also posted on Twitter/X and Bluesky, and we encourage you to add your thoughts there!

List of past seminars

[#39] Applying modularity to temporal networks modelled as link streams & Managing PhD and industrial work

How hard is it to do a PhD while working for a company ? Last Thursday at NetPLACE, we hosted Victor Brabant from Université Lyon 1, who shared his experience balancing a PhD with a corporate job.

[#38] Industrial or smallholder, that is the question & Communicating scientific results to a general audience

In our last seminar we welcomed Ariadna Fosch (BIFI Institute/ Centai), who talked to us about the contributions of different types of palm oil plantations, industrial and smallholders, towards a selection of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

[#37] AI-GPT interaction to deradicalize radical novax behavior & Ethics in social interactions on social networks

For our first seminar of the season, we hosted Andrea Russo (Sorbonne University and CNRS), who explored the intersection of digital sociology, ethnography, and AI, along with the challenges researchers face around data access and ethical considerations.

[#36] Investigating shocking events through temporal multilayer graph structure & How can we find new positions in academia?

I’m finishing my PhD, and now what? The quest for a postdoc position can be hard. Cheick Tidiane Ba from Queen Mary University of London talked about it in our last seminar of this academic year.

[#35] Network interplay: Competing effects on herd immunity & Science Communication in network science

How do we communicate Network Science to the public ? We talked about it with Abbas K. Rizi from Aalto University (Finland) who after being the very first speaker of NetPLACE was back with us after 2 years.

[#34] A network scientist’s perspective on polarization in social networks & Writing for fellowship applications

We were thrilled to host Max Falkenberg in early May to discuss his research on polarization, the changes to his approach, and the opportunities, pros and cons of applying for research fellowships. Here are some key takeaways

[#33] The role of egocentric perspective in temporal networks & Journals vs. conferences (with proceedings)

Is choosing between publishing in a journal or conference proceedings a matter of preference or strategy? After the Easter break, Antonio Longa from University of Trento and Fondazione Bruno Kessler, discussed it during our last seminar on April 18th.

[#32] Higher-order ghosts: spectral analysis of hypergraphs & Peer Review in Interdisciplinary Research: Present and Possible Future

Hey NetPals! Who’s up for a ghostly good time? In our last seminar with Gonzalo Contreras-Aso, we discussed about spectral centrality measures, higher-order networks, peer-review in interdisciplinary fields and much more! Very active discussion here.

[#31] Evaluating urban accessibility: A new approach using fitness and complexity metrics & Trying to survive as a frog in a world of birds

Do you prefer jumping from topic to topic like a frog, or do you like to keep your eyes focused on just one? We discussed this on Thursday, February 22nd, with Hygor Piaget, a researcher at Sony CSL, who introduced the topic with the talk “Trying to Survive as a Frog in a World of Birds”.

[#30] Spreading and structural balance on signed networks & How to survive when reality is far from your expectations

Starting a fresh interdisciplinary project and feeling lost? Got an idea, dive in, and bam – reality hits differently? Yu Tian, WINQ Fellow at Nordita, shared her experience in the talk “How to survive when reality is far from your expectation?”.