Physically Distributed

When systems and people are geographically separated, coordination becomes a technical and social challenge. This season investigates how distributed work and learning function at scale — from collaboration tools and communication protocols to productivity and engagement. Topics range from open-source software to virtual education, all examined through the lens of data and design in physically dispersed environments.

Episodes

  • The Reliability of Mobile Phone Data — Our mobile phones generate an incredible amount of data inbound and outbound. In today’s episode, Nishant Kishore, a PhD graduate of Harvard University in Infectious Disease Epidemiology, explains how
  • Haywire Algorithms — The pandemic changed how we lived. And this had a ripple effect on the performance of machine learning models. Ravi Parikh joins us today to discuss how the pandemic has affected the performance of ma
  • School Reopening Analysis — Carly Lupton-Smith joins us today to speak about her research which investigated the consistency between household and county measures of school reopening. Carly is a doctoral researcher in Biostatist
  • Modern Data Stacks — Today, we are joined by Alexander Thor, a Product Manager at Vizlib, makers of [Astrato](https://astrato.io/dataskeptic/). Astrato is a data analytics and business intelligence tool built on the cloud
  • Emoji as a Predictor — Emojis are arguably one of the most effective ways to express emotions when texting. In today’s episode, Xuan Lu shares her research on the use of emojis by developers. She explains how the study of e
  • Polarizing Trends in the Gig Economy — On the show today, Fabian Braesemann, a research fellow at the University of Oxford, joins us to discuss his study analyzing the gig economy. He revealed the trends he discovered since remote work bec
  • Remote Learning in Applied Engineering — On the show today, we interview Mouhamed Abdulla, a professor of Electrical Engineering at Sheridan Institute of Technology. Mouhamed joins us to discuss his study on remote teaching and learning in a
  • Remote Productivity — It is difficult to estimate the effect on remote working across the board. Darja Šmite, who speaks with us today, is a professor of Software Engineering at the Blekinge Institute of Technology. In her
  • Does Remote Learning Work? — We explore this complex question in two interviews today. First, Kasey Wagoner describes 3 approaches to remote lab sessions and an analysis of which was the most instrumental to students. Second, Tah
  • Covid-19 Impact on Bicycle Usage — In this episode, we speak with Abdullah Kurkcu, a Lead Traffic Modeler. Abdullah joins us to discuss his recent study on the effect of COVID-19 on bicycle usage in the US. He walks us through the data
  • Learning Digital Fabrication Remotely — Today, we are joined by Jennifer Jacobs and Nadya Peek, who discuss their experience in teaching remote classes for a course that is largely hands-on. The discussion was focused on digital fabrication
  • Remote Software Development — Today, we are joined by Denae Ford, a Senior Researcher at Microsoft Research and an Affiliate Assistant Professor at the University of Washington. Denae discusses her work around remote work and its
  • AlphaGo, COVID-19 Contact Tracing and New Data Set — # Announcing Journal Club I am pleased to announce Data Skeptic is launching a new spin-off show called "Journal Club" with similar themes but a very different format to the Data Skeptic everyone is u

Physically Distributed