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Diabetes and Big Data: Why Medical History Matters for Machine Learning

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Wednesday, October 19, 2016
12:00 pm - 1:00 pm
Joanna Radin, PhD
Humanities in Medicine Lecture

Lunch provided at NOON - Talk begins at 12:10 pm

This lecture is co-sponsored by the Department of History, and held as part of the Machine Learning Seminar of the Information Initiative at Duke sponsored by the Departments of Statistical Science, Computer Science and Electrical and Computer Engineering.

Beginning in the 1950s, medical researchers sponsored by the U.S. National Institutes of Health began a decades-long project to understand why members of the Gila River Indian Community Reservation, located outside of Phoenix, suffered from disproportionately high rates of diabetes. In this talk, Professor Radin will consider the hidden medical and colonial history of the Pima Indian Diabetes Data Set (PIDD) to offer a new perspective on important debates over open access, compensation, participation and the nature of knowledge made from "big data."

Joanna Radin, PhD is currently at work on a book about Cold War efforts to freeze blood salvaged from members of indigenous communities. Her related research deals with the history, anthropology and ethics of cryopreservation. Among Professor Radin's ongoing projects are a collaboration with biological
and medical anthropologists on issues pertaining to the management of human remains; the mobility and ethics of "big data"; and a biography of science fiction author, Michael Crichton.

Contact: Trent Center