Rona Aviram, PhD
Contact
Rona Aviram, PhD
Postdoc
Dept. of Computer Science and Applied Mathematics
The Weizmann Institute of Science
Rehovot 76100, Israel
My MSc and PhD research works were in life science, as a wet lab biologist I studied the molecular basis of daily rhythms at the Weizmann Institute of Science (WIS) at Prof. Gad Asher's lab. My research focus was elucidating a fundamental biological function shared by all living beings: timekeeping, and the mechanisms that regulate daily rhythms in behavior and physiology. A central theme of my work was the exploration of non-canonical rhythms, such as those found in intracellular organelles (Molecular Cell, 2016), and the discovery of novel alternative oscillators (PLOS Biology, 2021).
All the while, my "night job" included several projects on the history and philosophy of science, like the role metaphors (PTPBio, 2020) played in the history of the clock field, and the manner scientific discoveries are reflected on Wikipedia, the defining encyclopedia of our time, with case studies on topics like CRISPR (PLOS One, 2023), COVID-19 (GigaScience, 2021) and circadian clocks (JBR, 2018).
Expanding this latter work is now the focus of my research within the disciplines of digital humanities, computer science and history of science, as a postdoc in the department of Computer Science and Applied Mathematics, Prof. David Harel's group, WIS, and an associate researcher at CRI, Paris. My work explores knowledge dissemination online, specifically through Wikipedia, and I am developing computational tools and conceptual methodologies to conduct historical research using the website as a digital archive.
Expanding this latter work is now the focus of my research within the disciplines of digital humanities, computer science and history of science, as a postdoc in the department of Computer Science and Applied Mathematics, Prof. David Harel's group, WIS, and an associate researcher at CRI, Paris. My work explores knowledge dissemination online, specifically through Wikipedia, and I am developing computational tools and conceptual methodologies to conduct historical research using the website as a digital archive.
To me, this work’s merit goes beyond its intellectual contributions in reflecting historical processes, but also bring societal impact; As Wikipedia’s prominence and popularity continues to grow, addressing its content and development is a timely and crucial question, especially in our times rife with mis/disinformation.