2015 year in review

2015 has been an amazing year both on the professional and personal grounds. Here are some of the main things that happened this year:

2015 class of Master in Data Science and Big Data 2015 class of Master in Data Science and Big Data at AFI Escuela

  • Co-organization of NetMob'15 at the MIT Media Lab. In this edition the international conference of analysis of mobile databases had ~250 participants from the main universities, United Nations, telecomm operators and many more institutions and agencies.

  • My review article about “Network Analysis” appeared in the Princeton Companion to Applied Mathematics, the single-volume (and huge!) reference book on applied mathematics. Edited by the brilliant Nicholas J. Higham. The email network of my university was used to illustrate some concepts :)

princetonEmail Network at my University showing degree heterogeneity[/caption]

  • Program chair of Netsci2015, the largest conference of network science which took place in Zaragoza this year. Thanks to the program committee we were able to sort out more than 400 abstracts received. So thankful to Yamir Moreno and Sandro Meloni (organizers) for making it possible.

  • I gave around 20 talks in many scientific institutions, companies and conferences. From the short (and most stressful) 6min talk at Databeers Madrid to the one in the largest screen I ever have seen (20m wide) at the presentation of the new Sngular company * 5 talks at different high-schools in Madrid about the importance of mathematics to understand our daily life: from the lottery to social networks. This was an great project made possible by the outreach program of our university and a huge and tough responsibility to teach to teenagers. * We have published 7 papers in different journals, including Physical Review Letters, Physical Review E and PLoS One. Including a mini-review on temporal networks in mobile phone calls with Jari Saramaki

Talk at Sngular event That small person in front of the screen is me :)

Maria Medina presenting her Degree Final project Maria Medina presenting her Degree Final project[/caption]

  • We had a number of projects with different companies (and many more coming!). For example this year we collaborated with Twitter Spain to understand the dynamics of political opinion during 2015 and the different elections (local, regional, national) that took place.

  • This year I started to serve as editor in the EPJ Data Science journal which focuses on the publication of data-driven research. Together with my work as editor in JSTAT, I edited 15 papers and was referee in around 20 papers during 2015.

  • My university (UC3M) gave me the “Excellence in Research” award for the second time in a row. I am really honoured and grateful. I also become a member the UC3M-BS Institute of Financial Big Data, a joint institute between our university UC3M and Banco Santander to promote interdisciplinary research in analyzing Big Data with emphasis on financial applications. I also participated in many committees in my university, but you don’t want to know about it.

My university gave me the “Excellence in Research” award for the second time. So proud! My university gave me the “Excellence in Research” award for the second time. So proud!

  • Some data: my blog received more than 20k visits, and I published 7 posts. I also wrote 909 tweets and this is the tweet that got more views (impressions)

Nice dinner with friendsNice dinner with friends

Author

Esteban Moro

Professor at Northeastern University. Working on Complex Systems, Social Networks and Urban Science.