Molly G. Hickman

Substack ◆ Twitter ◆ LinkedIn ◆ Samotsvety Forecasting Team ◆ Google Scholar ◆ Music
|
|
Molly Hickman

I work on tools and tricks to help people think better, have more nuanced conversations about hard problems, and steer us toward a brighter, cooler future. Currently at Metaculus, a crowd prediction platform that aggregates human judgment forecasts on globally important questions.

I have a Masters in Computer Science from Virginia Tech, where I was advised by Benjamin Jantzen and Shaddi Hasan. Grad school seems bad for most people but it was good for me; ask me why.

I used to work at the Forecasting Research Institute with Phil Tetlock, and before that, nLine, a startup that measures power quality and reliability at outlets in homes, businesses and healthcare facilities, primarily in Sub-Saharan Africa. A long, long time ago, I worked at the MITRE Corporation, doing test & evaluation for crowdsourced intelligence projects. All told, I've spent 10+ years on forecasting-related projects.

Passions include: living in Charlottesville, Virginia (greatest city in America), playing old-time music, shape-note singing, hiking/camping, parenting, caring too much.

If you think you might be my future spouse, apply now.

Cairn sculpture by Stewart Hickman

Conference Papers

  • Miles, S.B., Hickman, M., Flaspohler, G., Bariya, M., Mughuma, J., Kammen, D. (2023). Beyond Access: Measuring Power Quality Issues at 27 Healthcare Facilities in the DRC. IEW '23. (paper) (slides)
  • Hickman, M.G., Pasad, V., Sanghavi, H., Thebault-Spieker, J., Lee, S.W. (2021). Understanding Wikipedia practices through Hindi, Urdu, and English takes on an evolving regional conflict. CSCW '21. DOI:10.1145/3449108 (paper)
  • Klugman, N., Adkins, J., Paszkiewicz, E., Hickman, M.G., Podolsky, M., Taneja, J., Dutta, P. (2021). Watching the grid: Utility-independent measurements of electricity reliability in Accra, Ghana. IPSN '21. DOI:10.1145/3412382.3458276 (paper)

Journal Articles

  • Kinney, N., Hickman, M., Anandakrishnan, R., Garner, H.R. (2020). Crossing complexity of space-filling curves reveals entanglement of S-phase DNA. PloS One. DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0238322 (paper)

Other Publications

  • Josh Rosenberg, Ezra Karger, Avital Morris, Molly Hickman, Rose Hadshar, Zachary Jacobrs, Philip Tetlock (2024). Roots of Disagreement on AI Risk: Exploring the Potential and Pitfalls of Adversarial Collaboration. Forecasting Research Institute, March 2024. (available here)
  • Molly Hickman. How Not To Predict The Future. Issue 5 of Asterisk Magazine, March 2024. (online)
  • Molly Hickman. Poor power quality is a bottleneck to global health and development. EA Forum, February 2024. (EA Forum)
  • Ezra Karger, Josh Rosenberg, Zachary Jacobs, Molly Hickman, Rose Hadshar, Kayla Gamin, Taylor Smith, Bridget Williams, Tegan McCaslin, Philip E. Tetlock (2023). Forecasting Existential Risks: Evidence from a Long-Run Forecasting Tournament. Forecasting Research Institute, June 2023. (available here)
  • Bariya, M., Hickman, M., Flaspohler, G. (2023). From Measurement to KPIs: Estimating SAIDI at nLine. (nLine blog)
  • Roberts, P., Misra, S., et al. (2020). CONVERGE COVID-19 Working Group: Technology, Policy, and the Public Sector in the COVID-19 Environment. Research Agenda-Setting Paper. (download)
math-cat Miscellaneous Drawings and Reminders that Help Me Think Better

Virginia Tech Masters Thesis Defense Slides (download)

IHO boundaries for Foretell

864-gallup-confidence-in-military.csv (download) Source: Gallup

ACLED Plots for Foretell