Talks (selected)
Photo: Lars Pehrson, 2024-10-21, SUA day at Posthuset, Stockholm, Sweden.
Daoud has given over a hundreds talks mainly in academia but also in industry and policy settings. This page gives a selected list of talks.
Yale Center for Geospatial Solutions January 23, 2025
Planetary Causal Inference: Understanding the Environment, Society, and Economy Through Earth Observation and Computer Vision
Yale Center for Geospatial Solutions January 23, 2025
In this talk, I explore how Earth observation (EO) data and machine learning can transform social science research. By integrating spatial data with causal inference techniques, the talk demonstrates how EO can provide high-resolution insights into global challenges such as urbanization, poverty, and deforestation—overcoming the limitations of traditional survey-based research. I also introduce innovative AI-driven methods for analyzing sustainable development and conflict on a planetary scale. This seminar was co-hosted by the Yale Center for Geospatial Solutions, the Yale Institute for Foundations of Data Science, and the Data-Intensive Social Science Center. The talk is part of a book project together with Connor Jerzak with a dedicated website at www.planetarycausalinference.org.
Swedish Young Academy, October 21, 2024
Experimental talk on research communication and storytelling (5-minute presentation)
Swedish Young Academy, Posthuset, Stockholm, Sweden
Together with three other fellow members of the Swedish Young Academy, I was invited to an experimental talk in research communication and storytelling. Under the mentorship of Linus Tunström, a theater and film director, former CEO and Artistic Director at Uppsala Stadsteater, I produced a 5-min talk that weaved together a selection of life events, from my childhood to adulthood to academic journey. The aim of the mentorship was to increase awareness of using body language, vocal resources, and tonal ranges to strengthen the ability to capture interest through research-related storytelling.
2024-10-21 SUA dagen på posthuset Foto: Lars Pehrson
Selected List
2025
January 2025 - Earth Observation and Machine Learning for the Social Sciences Center for Geospatial Solutions, Yale University, USA
January 2025 - Planetary Causal Inference Development Economics seminar series, University of Gottingen, Germany
2024
November 2024 - Plenary debate on earth observation for development GESIS - Leibniz Institute for the Social Sciences, Cologne, Germany
November 2024 - Keynote: Using satellites for social science research GESIS - Leibniz Institute for the Social Sciences, Cologne, Germany
October 2024 - Planetary Causal Inference Department of Statistics, Uppsala University, Sweden
January 2024 - Are You Devising an Observatory of Extraterrestrial Life? Lessons learned from Observatory of Poverty International CHASC AstroStatistics Centre, Harvard University, USA
January 2024 - Thinking predictively and causally in the age of data science Department of Sociology, UC Berkeley, USA
2023
September 2023 - Planetary social science (Fellow seminar) Center for Advanced Studies in Behavioral Sciences, Stanford University, USA
May 2023 - The AI and Global Development Lab: handling massive amounts of satellite images Chalmers University, AI for Scientific Computing, Sweden
February 2023 - Keynote: Statistical modeling: the three cultures 4th International Symposium on AI and Electronics, Japan
2022
December 2022 - From Economic Sociology to Computational Social Science, and Beyond (Zetterberg Prize Lecture) Uppsala University, Sweden
September 2022 - Observatory of Poverty: combining AI and earth observation to measure health and living conditions in Africa Swedish Institute for Social Research (SOFI), Stockholm University, Sweden
September 2022 - Plenary: Thinking inductively, deductively, and beyond: on the hybrid modeling culture Conference on Machine Learning for Epidemiology and Demography, Ystad, Sweden
September 2022 - Causal inference and machine learning (Methodological issues seminar) Lund University Population Research Platform (LUPOP), Sweden
August 2022 - Image-based Treatment Effect Heterogeneity Center for Causal Inference Symposium (with Connor Jerzak and Fredrik Johansson)
April 2022 - Statistical modeling: the three cultures Harvard University, Prof. Kawachi’s Society and Health Lab, USA
February 2022 - Observatory of Poverty: combining earth observation and deep learning to measure health and living conditions in Africa CHAIR Spotlight on Research, Sweden
2021
December 2021 - Using AI and remote sensing for poverty measurement University of Bristol, Frontiers of Poverty Measurement course, UK
November 2021 - Measuring global development with AI and satellites Group on Earth Observations (GEO) Week 2021
November 2021 - Comments on a Nobel prize in economics for causal inference: what is in it for sociology? University of Gothenburg, Department of Sociology, Sweden
November 2021 - Presenting the AI and Global Development Lab Chalmers AI Research Center, Sweden
October 2021 - Capturing health inequalities with machine learning (MPH students) University of Michigan School of Public Health, USA
October 2021 - Mobilizing satellite images and deep-learning algorithms to estimate living conditions Kyoto University of Advanced Science and Tohoku University, Japan
October 2021 - Measuring human development from space: satellites, deep-learning algorithms, and surveys AI Sweden, Gothenburg, Sweden
June 2021 - International Monetary Fund programs and its effect on children’s living conditions Johannesburg Institute for Advanced Study (JIAS), South Africa
March 2021 - Plenary: Statistical modeling: the three cultures SWE-REG conference, Machine Learning Methods in Medical and Social Sciences, Sweden
February 2021 - Combining satellite images and artificial intelligence to measure poverty in 1982-2020, and estimate causal effects of World Bank and Chinese development programs in Africa Chalmers Technical University, Machine Learning Seminar, Sweden
February 2021 - Favorable policies and funding for children - with and without a pandemic Global Sustainable Futures (with Andres Franco, UNICEF)
2020
April 2020 - Panel: AI and the fight against poverty Science Festival of Gothenburg, Sweden
February 2020 - The rise of machine learning in the social sciences: new opportunities and pitfalls Institute for Analytical Sociology, Norrkoping, Sweden
2019
December 2019 - Designing for treatment heterogeneity in the social and health sciences using machine learning Harvard University, Prof. Laura Kubzansky’s research group, USA
November 2019 - Observatory of poverty: Harnessing machine intelligence to detect poverty and inequality from satellite images Harvard University, Center for Population and Development Studies, USA
November 2019 - Confronting Child Poverty: Using Machine Learning to Evaluate IMF Programs in Low- and Middle-Income Countries Boston University, Frederick S. Pardee Center, USA
November 2019 - Plenary: Harnessing machine intelligence: four ways in which social scientists can deploy learning algorithms Swedish Research Council, Stockholm, Sweden
October 2019 - A framework to applying machine learning and artificial intelligence to social epidemiology and population sciences Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, USA
September 2019 - 3rd Global Data Commons Workshop: Defining Reference Cases and Path Ahead United Nations Global Pulse, New York City, USA
May 2019 - Identifying Impact Heterogeneity of Economic Shocks on Child poverty (peer-reviewed) Atlantic Causal Inference Conference (ACIC)
March 2019 - Children’s risk of poverty during economic crises in the Global South Harvard University, Public Policy and Urban Planning Program, USA
2018
September 2018 - Deploying machine learning in the service of policy evaluation: Economic crisis, global poverty, and inequality Harvard Center for Population and Development Studies, USA
June 2018 - Applying machine learning in the social sciences for statistical inference and data extraction University of Gothenburg, Department of Psychology, Sweden
March 2018 - Examples of how machine learning is changing poverty and policy research Chalmers Machine Learning Group, Sweden
2017
November 2017 - Evaluating robustness in unsupervised machine learning of corpora Alan Turing Institute, European Symposium Series on Societal Challenges, UK
July 2017 - Migration, Health and Health Systems: Frameworks and Data Needs to Impact Policy (peer-reviewed) iHEA World Congress, Revolutions in the Economics of Health Systems
January 2017 - Accounting for selection bias in multilevel models: the case of the International Monetary Fund and child health Political Methodology Group Annual Conference, University of Oxford, UK
2016
April 2016 - The International Monetary Fund’s Structural Adjustments, Spiking Food Prices, and Child Undernutrition Centre for Diet and Activity Research, University of Cambridge, UK
February 2016 - IMF Conditionality, Food Prices, and Child Undernutrition, 2000-2014 University of Cambridge, Department of Sociology, UK
2015
December 2015 - Computational Social Science Research: with some Implications for Health Research UCLA, Fielding School of Public Health, USA
May 2015 - Impact of the Financial Crisis on Children New School for Social Research, Graduate Program in International Affairs, New York, USA
March 2015 - Discussant to Prof. Sanjay Reddy’s “The Global Consumption and Income Project” Columbia University, INET Seminar Series (chaired by Joseph Stiglitz), USA
2014
December 2014 - Using R-programming for Social Scientific Inquiry Max Planck Institute for Studies of Societies, Cologne (with Barbara Fulda), Germany
June 2014 - The Economic Sociology of Scarcity Max Planck Institute for Studies of Societies, Cologne, Germany
2013
October 2013 - Reflections about writing your PhD Max Planck’s IMPRS-SPCE Graduate Retreat, Wuppertal, Germany
September 2013 - Discussant for Patrik Aspers’ “Identity, Relation, and Existence: the Market Case” Economic Sociology and New Theoretical Directions, Noors Slott, Sweden
2011
October 2011 - Vad kan ekonomisk sociologi bidra till var kunskap om ekonomin? - Fokus pa resursknapphet University of Gothenburg, Social Science Day, Sweden
2010
May 2010 - Atlas.ti training session University of Cambridge, Department of Sociology, UK
May 2010 - What is Scarcity? Cambridge Realist Workshop, Clare College, UK
May 2010 - Educational choices, habitus and reflexivity Institute of Education, University of London, UK
April 2010 - Scarcity, Abundance, and Sufficiency: some implications for Sustainability Anglia Ruskin University, Cambridge, UK