"Larval transport and nutrient sources in the deep-water region of the Gulf of Mexico"

During the last 13 years, most of my research has focused on the oceanography of the central Gulf of Mexico, particularly on drivers of larval fish community structure and dispersal and inferring nutrient sources using bulk and compound-specific stable isotope ratios as tracers. Specifically, my research has contributed to the understanding of the physical and biological processes that underlie larval fish abundance and distribution, their connectivity through physical transport processes, gulf-wide nitrogen sources, and the relationship between secondary production and oceanographic features such as mesoscale eddies, fronts, and convergent currents. I am also examining the implications of the offshore transport of the larvae of fish species that spawn in coastal and shelf habitats but are frequently captured in the deep-water region, as their dispersal could represent a population loss with potential negative impacts on the abundance of commercially important species. My research provides critical information for evaluating the response and resilience of the gulf’s pelagic ecosystems to climate change and other anthropogenic disturbances.

"Two Strangers Sit Down for a Conversation" 

Face-to-face communication plays a fundamental role in maintaining group cohesion, preserving mental health, fostering learning, and supporting development. Yet, we understand little about the dynamic signals (under both conscious and unconscious control) that meet communicative demands. I will share how wearable sensors combined with artificial intelligence can offer new ways to characterize and understand the dynamic interplay of communication in real-world environments and – potentially – to engineer solutions for better communication.

"Are LLMs more like Libraries or Librarians?" 

Is LLM-generated text meaningful? A number of recent authors have argued that it is not, on the grounds that LLMs cannot have beliefs, desires, and intentions, and that meaningful text can only be produced by entities which have such states. In this talk, based on a joint paper with Kyle Mahowald, I'll argue against this position, developing the idea that LLMs are a "cultural technology" (a view we call "bibliotechnism"), and showing how this basic picture can accommodate the meaningfulness of LLM text, without attributing beliefs, desires, and intentions to LLMs. At the end of the talk, if there's time, I'll discuss limitations of bibliotechnism, presenting what we call "the novel reference problem", and how on some prominent philosophical theories, this phenomenon might provide evidence that LLMs do after all have beliefs, desires, and intentions.

"Cis (Dis)Comfort and Trans Parenthood in Early Childhood Education" 

Strategies to disrupt heteronormativity in early childhood education tend to be restricted to the recognition of same-sex parents. Meanwhile, transgender parents remain culturally illegible in schools and beyond. In this lighting talk, I present findings from photo-elicitation interviews I conducted with early childhood teachers. I unpack teachers’ reactions to pictures of “diverse families” and explore their (dis)comfort with transness. I point out oppositional sexism and ungendering as two major processes through which teachers appeased their gender anxiety, oftentimes resulting in the denial of trans parents’ humanity.