January 16th at 7pm, 2024: Extreme Weather On Social Media
Renée Sieber, Ph.D., Associate Professor, McGill University

Crisis managers aim to prevent injuries and fatalities during extreme weather events by issuing official alerts across a variety of platforms including social media. Yet few ever study how well these alerts actually aid the public or promote safety. McGill University Associate Professor Renée Sieber will discuss her project, funded by Environment and Climate Change Canada, that uses machine learning (Natural Language Processing or NLP) to analyze social media data and determine how best to improve the situational awareness of individuals and officials during damaging extreme weather events in Northern climates.