Hello everyone and welcome to Talk Nurdy. Today is Monday January 23rd,

23 and I'm the host of the show Kara Santa Maria And before we dive into this week's fascinating

episode, I do want to thank those of you who make talk nerdy possible week

after week. Like is often the case today, I don't have any ads to read. I didn't sell any ads on this episode,

which means that I'm only getting paid for the dynamically inserted ads from the back

catalog, which pay a lot less. And I really do rely on this support.

Like the reason this episode is happening

is because of the support from patrons just like you.

So if you're interested in pledging your support

financially on an episodic basis, you can do as little as like a buck an episode.

At a certain threshold you get at free episodes of the show and at higher tears.

You get more love and warmth and awesomeness.

And I just want to thank those of you who already do it.

If you're interested, you can visit Patreon.com slash talk nerdy. My top patrons this week include Daniel Lang, David J. E. Smith, Mary Niva, Brian Holden, David Compton, Gabriel F.

Herr Emil Gonzalez, Joe Wilkinson, Pasqualee,

Jalati, and Ul Rica Hagman.

Thank you all so so much.

Okay, so let's talk about this week's episode.

So I have the opportunity to have a chat with Dr. Erica Thompson.

She's a Senior Policy Fellow at the London School of Economics Data Science Institute and a fellow of the London Mathematical Laboratory.

She earned her PhD from Imperial College and she has worked on a bunch of different models and worked to understand the limitations of those models everywhere from

COVID-19 to humanitarian crises to climate change.

...