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DISC Symposium

Innovating for Impact: DISC Inaugural Data Science Symposium

Wednesday, March 26th, 2025 from 8:30 am - 4 pm
Continental Breakfast & Lunch will be provided.

It is with great pleasure that we invite you to the upcoming inaugural symposium, titled "Innovating for Impact: DISC Inaugural Data Science Symposium".  This full-day event will be packed with learning, inspiration, and networking opportunities. The symposium will feature keynote speakers, breakout sessions, poster presentations on a variety of topics, and vendor booths. 

Attendance at the symposium is FREE. However, registration is required to ensure smooth coordination. We look forward to welcoming you to this event!

Please click the accordians for more information.

 

 

 

IMAGE OF DISC SYMPOSIUM Save-the-Date Flyer
8:30 am - 10:00 am  Event Registration /Continental Breakfast  /  Poster Presentations / Vendor Tables
10:00 am - 11:00 am  Opening Remarks & Keynote Speaker 
11:00 am - 11:45 am  Panel Speaker Discussions (2 sessions simultaneously)
11:45 am - 12:00 pm  Break
12:00 pm - 1:00 pm  Lunch Provided, Poster Presentations, Vendor Tables
1:00 pm -  1:45 pm  Panel Speaker Discussions (2 sessions simultaneously)
1:45 pm -  2:00 pm  Break
2:00 pm - 3:00 pm  Keynote Panel "The Future of AI at OU"
3:00 pm - 3:30 pm Poster Session Winners Announced
3:30 pm - 4:00 pm  Networking 


Sam Noble Museum
2401 Chautauqua Ave
Norman, OK 73072

Due to an overwhelming response, we have recieved the maximum number of registrations.  

 

Posters can be presented on any topic. Students from all Undergraduate and Graduate Colleges and Departments are invited to present.

 

Poster registration is separate from Event Registration, participants must register for both to present a poster. 


Poster Participants are required to attend a short virtual poster information session:

Tuesday 3/4/2025 @ 9am:      Click to Join Zoom

Thursday 3/13/2025 @ 3 pm: Click to Join Zoom

 

 

Image of OU Medallion

 

Prizes will be announced at 3:00 pm 

1st place - $2000 scholarship

2nd place - $1000 scholarship

3rd place - $500 scholarship.

Guidelines for Posters

Design Guidelines:

  • Important information should be readable from about 3’-5' distance
  • Title is short and draws interest
  • Word count of about 300 to 800 words
  • Text is clear and to the point
  • Use of bullets, numbering, and headlines make it easy to read
  • Effective use of graphics, color and fonts
  • Consistent and clean layout
  • Includes acknowledgments, your name and institutional affiliation

Venue Information

Posters will be displayed in the Pleistocene Plaza. Easels will be provided.

Please have someone from the presentation team available beginning at 8:15 am and available throughout the day during breaks. Presenters do not have to be available during speaker sessions.

Presentation

Poster Presenters must be at their station during the evaluation times (8:30 am – 10 am and 12 pm – 1 pm) to interact with guests and present their posters to the judges.

Each presentation will be evaluated between 8:30 am – 10 am or 12 pm – 1 pm.

Presentations should be no longer than 5 minutes in length, including Q&As.

Grading Rubric: Poster Competition - Evaluation Rubric.pdf

Session 

Speaker Name

Talk Title

Abstract
Opening RemarksDavid Ebertn/an/a
Keynote Speaker
10 am - 11 am
Polo Chau"Human-Centered AI: Safe, Interpretable, Trustworthy Analytics"

Tremendous growth in artificial intelligence (AI) research has shown that AI is vulnerable to adversarial attacks, and its predictions can be difficult to understand, evaluate, and ultimately act upon.

 

Our Safe AI research addresses AI vulnerabilities and develops countermeasures to fortify AI deployment in safety-critical settings. ShapeShifter, the world's first targeted physical attack, fools the Faster R-CNN object detector. LLM Self Defense presents a straightforward, practical method for detecting harmful outputs through self-examination. Our safety landscape visualization reveals the novel "safety basin" phenomenon observed universally in LLMs, shedding light on the critical role of system prompts in protecting LLMs from misuse.

 

Our complementary interpretable AI research creates a suite of interactive visualizations that amplify people's ability to understand complex models and vulnerabilities. WizMap allows scalable on-device exploration of large AI embeddings, while LLM Attributor introduces a new way to quickly attribute an LLM's text generation to specific training data points, aiding in the inspection of model behaviors. Summit, NeuroCartography, and Bluff offer scalable summaries and visualizations of deep learning model features, interactions, and potential attack vectors.

 

Our trustworthy AI research empowers users to steer models in alignment with human knowledge and values. GAM Changer empowers domain users to edit ML models to reflect human knowledge. Our suite of AI Explainers (Transformer Explainer, Diffusion Explainer, CNN Explainer, GAN Lab) offer accessible tools for both students and experts to learn about AI models.

Keynote Panel
2 pm - 3pm
David Ebert"The Future of AI at OU"n/a
Nishanth Rodrigues
Amy McGovern
Hunter Heyck

David Ebert, PhD
Associate Vice President for Research and Partnerships
Director, Data Institute for Societal Challenges (DISC)
Gallogly Chair in Engineering
Professor, ECE and Computer Science
BIO


Amy McGovern

Lloyd G. and Joyce Austin Presidential Professor, School of Meteorology and School of Computer Science

Director, NSF AI2ES
University of Oklahoma

BIO


Hunter Heyck

Professor, History of Science, Technology, and Medicine

Director, Center for Creativity and Authenticity in AI Cultural Production

University of Oklahoma

BIO


Polo Chau
Director of Industry Relations, Institute for Data Engineering and Science
Professor
Associate Director, MS in Analytics

BIO

 



Nishanth Rodriques

Chief Information Officer, OU IT

University of Oklahoma

BIO


Session 

Speaker Name

Talk Title

Abstract 

Morning
Session A

Auditorium

Bob PalmerThe Advanced Radar Research Center (ARRC) at the University of Oklahoma – Bridging the Gap Between Engineering and ScienceThe Advanced Radar Research Center (ARRC) at the University of Oklahoma is leading the development of next-generation weather radar technology through the fully digital phased array radar system, Horus. This presentation provides an overview of ARRC’s history, capabilities, and its role in advancing weather and defense radar systems. Horus represents a paradigm shift in radar meteorology, leveraging cutting-edge digital beamforming, high-resolution polarimetric observations, and rapid scanning capabilities. Designed for scalability and real-time operation, Horus has already demonstrated high-quality weather measurements, including 3D hail core observations and multiple simultaneous transmit/receive beam applications. This technology promises to revolutionize atmospheric sensing, enabling more precise and rapid weather forecasting while supporting multi-mission capabilities, including aviation and defense applications. The future of weather radar observations is now being shaped by fully digital phased array technology, offering unprecedented flexibility and performance.

Morning
Session A

Auditorium

Chenghao WangA Comprehensive Historical Hourly Weather Database for U.S. Urban Energy System ModelingReliable and continuous meteorological data are crucial for modeling urban energy systems and their components under various weather and climate conditions. However, existing long-term datasets often suffer from spatial and temporal gaps and inconsistencies. We developed CHUWD-H v1.0, a 23-year gap-free and quality-controlled hourly weather dataset covering 550 locations across all urban areas in the contiguous United States. It synthesizes hourly weather observations from stations with outputs from a physics-based solar radiation model and reanalysis data through a multi-step gap filling approach. Designed primarily for urban energy system modeling, it can also support historical urban meteorological and climate studies.

Morning
Session A

Auditorium

Carrie SchroederLeveraging Small Data for Big ImpactsOne of the challenges of our era of “big data,” especially with respect to language data, is the resource gap. Dominant, well-resourced languages such as English benefit from more extensive tool development, and much more data-driven research can be conducted on the language and documents – contemporary or historical – in those languages. Low-resourced languages, on the other hand, do not have large digital corpora and NLP tools. The ability to study, translate, analyze low-resourced languages and their historical documents is diminished compared to the well-resourced. And the research, tools, etc., built for well-resourced languages exacerbate that gap. This paper will use the example of one of the ancient languages (Coptic) to explore how a small team can move a language out of the low-resource status and have a comparatively big research impact despite working with a small dataset.

Morning
Session B

Plaza

Hank Jenkins- Smith & Joseph RipbergerData Analytics for Public Policy ResearchThis talk explores how OU’s Institute for Public Policy Research and Analysis (IPPRA) leverages data to inform public policy. We use survey research data (national, state, and subgroup samples), social media data (public sentiment and trends), and administrative data (HR, cost, and performance metrics). To enhance accessibility and impact, we develop web apps and interactive dashboards that allow users to visualize and apply our findings. By integrating diverse data sources with practical tools, IPPRA advances both academic research and real-world policy solutions.

Morning
Session B

Plaza

David Bard & William BeasleyComing SoonComing Soon

Morning
Session B

Plaza

Yutian ThompsonEvaluating Data Quality in Child Maltreatment Administrative Records: Insights from the National Children's Alliance DatabaseThis study evaluates the quality of child maltreatment administrative data from the National Children’s Alliance database (NCAtrak), which includes records from 393 Children’s Advocacy Centers (CACs) across 45 U.S. states, covering over 1.2 million child maltreatment cases. Findings indicate moderate to good overall data quality, with significant variations across CACs. Geographic location was associated with these variations. The results highlight the need for further investigation into underlying factors affecting data quality, which is essential for developing solutions to improve data integrity within child welfare systems.

Afternoon
Session A

Classroom

Erin MaherData Science for Social Science: The Promise and Potential for Solving Social ProblemsDr. Maher will provide examples of the application of data science in the social sciences to address social problems in concrete ways. She will discuss new advances, as well as cautions and concerns. She will highlight the promise of transdisciplinary teams employing data science techniques in innovative and ethical ways for the betterment of society.

Afternoon
Session A

Classroom

Chongle PanEnhancing Shared Decision-Making for Lung Cancer Screening with a Trustworthy AI ChatbotLung cancer screening (LCS) uptake remains low, highlighting the need for interventions that enhance accessibility, patient education, and shared decision-making. We developed an AI-driven chatbot integrating smoking cessation support with LCS consultations. A pilot study (N=29) demonstrated its effectiveness in assessing smoking-related risks and improving cessation readiness. Additionally, we are collaborating with clinical experts to standardize LCS eligibility assessment. Future work includes expert evaluations and model optimization to enhance chatbot accuracy, engagement, and its potential to reduce health disparities.

Afternoon
Session B

Auditorium

Angela Person &  Christopher BlackFrom Data to Design: Enhancing Museum Experiences with BiosensorsTraditional museum evaluation methods often fail to capture real-time emotional and physiological visitor responses. This study integrates biosensor technology, visitor studies, and architectural analysis to assess engagement in emotionally charged exhibits. Using Empatica E4 wristbands, researchers mapped electrodermal activity (EDA) across museum spaces, revealing heightened arousal in specific exhibits. Findings suggest strategic exhibition design adjustments can be made to enhance visitor experience. This research highlights the potential of biosensory data in museum studies, offering a scalable methodology for improving engagement in heritage spaces. Results are forthcoming in the International Handbook of Heritage and Affect (Routledge).

Afternoon
Session B

Auditorium

Qinggong TangA Pre-Transplantation Donor Liver Evaluation System (LIVES)Liver transplantation for severe hepatic diseases faces a critical shortage of donor livers globally. Utilizing marginal donor livers could alleviate this issue, yet current biopsy-based assessments are limited in evaluating their viability comprehensively. We propose employing polarization-sensitive optical coherence tomography (PS-OCT) to noninvasively scan multiple regions of donor livers, providing detailed microstructural and tissue property evaluations. Our approach integrates texture feature extraction and machine learning to correlate PS-OCT findings with pathological assessments, demonstrating its potential to enhance pre-transplantation viability evaluations for liver. PS-OCT can serve as a promising tool for transplant clinics, offering precise, noninvasive insights into liver tissue quality across the entire donor liver.

Robert D. Palmer

Executive Director, Advanced Radar Research Center (ARRC)

Associate Vice President for Research & Partnerships

Interim Director, National Weather Center

Professor & Tommy C. Craighead Chair, School of Meteorology

University of Oklahoma

BIO

 


Caroline T. Schroeder

Professor, Women's and Gender Studies

Core Faculty, Data Scholarship Program in the Dodge Family College of Arts & Sciences

Affiliate Faculty, History and Religious Studies Departments

Faculty Fellow, Data Institute for Societal Challenges

BIO


Yutian Thompson

Associate Professor, Pediatrics

Quantitative Psychology

University of Oklahoma

BIO


Chongle Pan

Professor

Computer Science and Biomedical Engineering

BIO


Hank Jenkins-Smith

George Lynn Cross Research Professor, Public Policy

Director, OU Institute for Public Policy Research and Analysis

Joe Ripberger

Associate Professor, Political Science

Deputy Director, OU Institute for Public Policy and Analysis

BIO


Qinggong Tang

Associate Professor of Stephenson School of Biomedical Engineering

Endowed Stephenson Professor

Associate Member – Stephenson Cancer Center

BIO


Erin Maher

Professor, Department of Sociology

Senior Associate Director, Data Institute for Societal Challenges (DISC)

Adjunct Associate Professor, Department of Pediatrics and College of Medicine, OU Health Sciences Center

Affiliate Faculty, Department of Women’s and Gender Studies

BIO


Angela Person

Associate Dean for Research and External Engagement, Gibbs College of Architecture

Associate Professor, Architecture

BIO


Christopher Black

Interim Department Chair, Department of Health and Exercise Science

Associate Professor

University of Oklahoma

BIO


Chenghao Wang

Assistant Professor

School of Meteorology

University of Oklahoma

BIO


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To request information about becoming a vendor, please click the button below:

Vendor Information Request

 

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