The Ken Kennedy Institute hosts several lecture series throughout the academic year. Each of these series has a specific focus. Distinguished guests are invited to present talks that allow for both discussion, networking, and an opportunity to hear from top researchers, executives, and leaders from around the globe.

Active Series

• Ken Kennedy Institute Distinguished Lecture Series brings leaders in the field of computing and data science from both academia and industry to Rice to speak about the impact of their work.

• Ken Kennedy Institute AI Seminar Series presents a weekly seminar for students at Rice University.

• AI & Computing Lecture Series brings faculty and industry professionals to Rice to speak about the impact of their work related to AI and Computing.

• Technology, Culture, and Society Lecture Series is organized by the Technology, Culture, and Society Initiative and co-sponsored by the Ken Kennedy Institute. This series focuses on social, political, and legal issues that have emerged from the information revolution that touches most aspects of our daily lives.

Past Series

• Technology Innovation Lecture Series sponsored jointly by the Liu Idea Lab for Innovation and Entrepreneurship and the Ken Kennedy Institute.

• Generative AI Coast to Coast Webinar Series brought together speakers from peer institutions to discuss Generative AI in research with the larger goal of fostering a broad community of cross-institutional and interdisciplinary researchers, and building research ideas and collaboration. View website here.
  • Participating Institutions: Johns Hopkins University; the Ohio State University; Rice University; the International Computer Science Institute, an Affiliated Institute of University of California, Berkeley; University of Michigan; and the University of Washington.

• Data Science Coast to Coast Lecture Series is hosted jointly by seven academic data science institutes and provides a unique opportunity to foster a broad-reaching data science community. Speakers include important figures in data science who will provide insight on the transformative use of data science in traditional research disciplines, future breakthroughs in data science research, data science entrepreneurship, and advocacy and national policies for a data-enabled and just society. The series will also include faculty members and postdoctoral fellows at the seven host universities whose research spans the theory and methodology of data science, and their application in arts and humanities, engineering, biomedical, natural, physical and social sciences.

  • Hosted by: Institute for Data Intensive Engineering and Science at John Hopkins, NYU Center for Data Science, Ken Kennedy Institute at Rice University, Stanford Data Science, Berkeley Institute for Data Science, Michigan Institute for Data Science, and the eScience Institute at University of Washington.