As a postdoctoral researcher in the TEMET Research Group, I recently had the
opportunity to attend Sunbelt 2026, the annual conference of the International
Network for Social Network Analysis (INSNA), held in Daytona Beach, Florida, USA. I was grateful to receive an INSNA Travel Grant, which helped support my
attendance at the conference.
One of the highlights of the conference was presenting two pieces of our recent
research. In my talk, A Network-Based Diagnostic of Resilience in Scientific Fields
(with Dr. Daniele Fanelli), I introduced our network-based framework for assessing
the resilience of scientific fields using conference networks. We showed how
targeted perturbations, together with structural network measures and epistemic
indicators, can provide new insights into the robustness of scientific knowledge.
Our second presentation, Network Proxy of Scientific Consensus Reflects
Reproducibility of Biomedical Experiments (Dr. Daniele Fanelli and I), demonstrated how network-derived measures of scientific consensus are associated with the reproducibility of biomedical findings. It was rewarding to share this work and discuss its implications for developing quantitative indicators of research reliability with colleagues from different disciplines.
Before the main conference, I attended two professional development workshops.
The first, Artificial Intelligence for the Scientist in a Hurry, led by George Vega Yon
(University of Utah), explored practical ways of integrating artificial intelligence into research workflows. I was particularly interested in the demonstrations of locally hosted large language models, and since returning home I have continued
experimenting with these tools in my own research.
The second workshop, Introduction to Core Social Network Concepts, was led by
Steve Borgatti (University of Kentucky) and Rich DeJordy (Rochester Institute of
Technology). This was especially meaningful for me because Prof. Borgatti‘s work
was highly influential during my PhD. Having the opportunity to learn directly from him and meet him in person was one of the most memorable moments of the conference.
Beyond presenting our research, one of the most rewarding aspects of the
conference was meeting researchers from around the world, exchanging ideas, and learning about the latest developments in network science. I left Sunbelt with new connections, fresh research ideas, and renewed enthusiasm for our work at TEMET. In my next blog post, I’ll share some of the talks and emerging research themes that I found particularly inspiring.
Author: Assemgul Kozhabek
