CoDEx 2026 Agenda

The Computation and Data Exchange (CoDEx) will take place on April 21, 2026, from 10 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., at the Norris University Center on the Evanston Campus. Registration/check-in will be in the Louis Lobby from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m.

Our experts will be available throughout the symposium at the RCDS table in the Louis Room to answer your questions on computing, data management, and data science.

CoDEx is sponsored by the Office of the Provost and corporate sponsors Google Cloud, Comsol, Amazon Web Services, Redesign, and Dell Technologies.

As Green Office certified, Research Computing and Data Services encourages participants to bring a reusable water bottle to the event and be mindful of single-use materials at the symposium.

CoDEx agenda
Time	Event
10 a.m.–1 p.m.	Registration - Louis Lobby
10:30 a.m. – Noon	Poster Session - Louis Room Visualization Challenge - Louis Room
11:30 a.m.–1 p.m.	Light Lunch and Refreshments - Louis Room
1–1:10 p.m.	Welcome - McCormick Auditorium Jackie Milhans, Director, Research Computing and Data Services, Northwestern IT
1:10–1:55 p.m.	Keynote Panel - McCormick Auditorium Research Replication in the Modern World: Challenges and Opportunities Panelists: Elizabeth Tipton, Professor of Statistics and Data Science, Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences, Northwestern University; Jessica Hullman, Ginni Rometty Professor of Computer Science, McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science, Northwestern University; and Jacob Schauer, Assistant Professor, Preventive Medicine, Feinberg School of Medicine Moderator: Christina Maimone, Associate Director, Research Data Services, Northwestern IT
1:55–2:05 p.m.	Break
2:05–2:25 p.m.	Parallel Research Talks: Neutron Star Drag Race: Simulating Neutron Stars in a Common Envelope - Wildcat Room Nicole Flors, PhD Student, Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences, et al. iVox: Deep Interpretable Survival Prediction for Personalized Radiotherapy Dose Optimization - Lake Room Sagnik Sarkar, Senior Research Technologist, Feinberg School of Medicine, et al. Designing Gen AI Interaction Paradigms to Support User Creativity in Music Production - Big Ten Room Katherine O'Toole, PhD Candidate, School of Communication, et al. Sponsor Presentation: Accelerating Simulation Apps with Data-Driven Surrogate Models - Arch Room Akhilesh Sasankan, Senior Application Engineer, COMSOL, Inc.
2:35– 2:55 p.m.	Parallel Research Talks: Automatic Detection of Ultrasonic Vocalizations Using Deep Learning Methods: Exploring the Effects of Neonatal Hypoxia on Vocal Behavior in Rats - Wildcat Room Yilan Wei, PhD Student, Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders, et al. Comparative genomics of herpes simplex virus 2 isolated from a maternal-neonatal dyad reveals high consensus sequence homology as well as minor variant diversity - Lake Room Reem Abu Rass, PhD, Feinberg School of Medicine, et al. Learning as Graph Traversal - Big Ten Room Jacob Puthipiroj, PhD Student, School of Education and Social Policy
3:05–3:25 p.m.	Parallel Research Talks: CalibrAI: Evaluating and Tuning Safety-Usability Tradeoffs in LLM-Based Systems - Wildcat Room Dheeptha Rai, Graduate Student, McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science Ultrasound-Mediated BBB Disruption Promotes Microglial Reprogramming and Enhanced Endothelial Crosstalk in the Human Brain - Lake Room Víctor Andrés Arrieta, Clinical Research Associate, Health and Biomedical Informatics (HBMI), Feinberg School of Medicine, et al. Human vs. Generative AI: A Comparison of Creative Strategies - Big Ten Room Yulin Yu, Postdoc Scholar, Northwestern Institute on Complex Systems & Kellogg School of Management, et al. Sponsor Presentation: Google AI for Researchers—A New Era of Scientific Discovery - Arch Room John Cecala, Google Higher Education Advocate \| Research & AI \| Student Success
3:35–3:55 p.m.	Parallel Research Talks: Contempt - Wildcat Room Nathan Reitinger, Postdoctoral Fellow, Pritzker School of Law, et al. Probabilistic Phylodynamic Models for Viral Evolution Across Biological Scales - Lake Room Seth Borrowman, Research Technologist, Feinberg School of Medicine, et al. Gait Analysis Through the Deployment of Markerless Motion Capture in Routine Clinical Practice - Big Ten Room Irina Djuraskovic, PhD Student, Interdepartmental Neuroscience Program (NUIN), The Graduate School, et al.
3:55– 4:05 p.m.	Break
4:05–4:25 p.m.	Awards and Closing - McCormick Auditorium Jackie Milhans, Director, Research Computing and Data, Northwestern IT; Julia Giannini, Computation Specialist, Research Computing Services, Northwestern IT

CoDEx 2026 Agenda

Thank you to our Corporate Sponsors.