Victor M. Poulsen

Predoctoral Fellow at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU)

Profile & Research

I apply cutting-edge computational and statistical models to understand complex phenomena. Currently, I am working as a predoctoral fellow with prof. Simon DeDeo (CMU/SFI) on novel Machine Learning (ML) approaches to cultural data in the “small data” limit.

Education

2020-2022 MSc, Cognitive Science, Aarhus University (AU)
My Master’s thesis used Bayesian modeling, network analysis, and NLP to investigate the social dynamics of the replication crisis in psychological science. As part of my Master’s studies I did an internship with prof. Roberta Sinatra at the NEtworKs, Data, and Society (NERDS) research group at the IT-University of Copenhagen (ITU) focusing on the impact of COVID-19 on scientific publishing.

2017-2020 BSc, Cognitive Science and Mathematics, Aarhus University (AU)
My Bachelor’s thesis implemented an Agent-Based Model to investigate the role of scientific research strategies, diversity, and network connectivity in scientific discovery. I did my elective at the mathematics department to strengthen my quantitative profile.

Job Experience

2022-current Predoctoral Fellowship at Carnegie Mellon University
I am currently working with prof. Simon DeDeo (CMU/SFI) at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) as a predoctoral researcher. Our research focuses on applying models from statistical physics (e.g. the Ising model) to develop novel ML approaches to social and cultural data. Through my position, I have been able to interact with world-class researchers in complexity science, and have I have presented our work to research groups at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) and at the Santa Fe Institute (SFI).

2020-2022 Center for Humanities Computing Aarhus (CHCAA)
My job as a student developer at CHCAA involved collaborating with researchers from the humanities to develop analysis pipelines, mostly focusing on NLP and social network analysis.

2019-2020 Research Assistant at Music in the Brain (MiB)
My job as a research assistant at MiB involved conducting fMRI and MEG imaging, behavioural testing, data analysis, planning, and recruiting.

Technical Skills and Languages

• Danish, and English (excellent)
• Python, R, LaTeX, and GitHub (excellent)
• Julia, bash scripting, and Inkscape (decent)

Teaching Experience

2020 Teaching Assistant for “Computational Modeling of Cognitive Science”
The Cognitive Science (BSc) course was taught by prof. Riccardo Fusaroli, and focused on applied Bayesian statistics in the R programming language. As a teaching assistant I helped the students with conceptual and technical questions related to weekly exercises.

2020 Teaching Assistant for “Experimental Methods 3”
The Cognitive Science (BSc) course was taught by prof. Byurakn Ishkhanyan and taught advanced frequentist statistics and ML in the R programming language. I was involved in preparing presentations for class exercises as well as helping students with weekly assignments.

2018 Teaching Assistant for “Studium Generale”
The Cognitive Science (BSc) course was taught by prof. Savhannah Schultz and focused on the history of Cognitive Science, and philosophy of science more broadly. In this course I prepared presentations, and facilitated discussions, exercises, and formal debates.

Publications

2023 Poulsen, V. M., & DeDeo, S. (2023). Inferring Cultural Landscapes with the Inverse Ising Model. Entropy, 25(2), 264.
The article presents extensions and improvements to the Minimum Probability Flow (MPF) algorithm to approximate the inverse Ising model, and features a case-study on the Database of Religious History (DRH). Article available here: https://www.mdpi.com/1099-4300/25/2/264

Cognitive Attractors and the Cultural Evolution of Religion (in review)
Pre-review copy available here: https://sites.santafe.edu/~simon/poulsen_dedeo.pdf

References

Associate Professor Riccardo Fusaroli (AU)
Relation: Advisor on my BSc and MSc thesis projects at Aarhus University.
Email: fusaroli@cc.au.dk
Phone: (+45)87163145

Assiciate Professor Simon DeDeo (CMU/SFI)
Relation: Mentor for my predoctoral fellow position at CMU.
Email: sdedeo@andrew.cmu.edu
Phone: +1-505-577-2723