Statistics Colloquium: Oshani Seneviratne and Fernando Spadea, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Predicting Risk in Web3: From Crypto Social Signals to DeFi Lending Outcomes

Title: Predicting Risk in Web3: From Crypto Social Signals to DeFi Lending Outcomes

Presented by Oshani Seneviratne, Assistant Professor; Fernando Spadea, Ph. D Student, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute

DATE: Wednesday, March 11, 2026, 3:30 PM, AUST 434

Meeting Link: WebEx link

Coffee will be available at 3:00 PM in the Noether Lounge (AUST 326)

Bio:Oshani Seneviratne Bio: Oshani Seneviratne is an Assistant Professor of Computer Science at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI), where she leads the BRAINS Lab (Bridging Resilient, Accountable, Intelligent Networked Systems). Her research focuses on decentralized systems, including web technologies, blockchain, and decentralized learning, with applications in health informatics and fintech. Her research has been recognized with multiple best paper awards and the Yahoo! Key Scientific Challenges Award. For more information about Oshani, please refer to her website http://oshani.info.

Fernando Spadea Bio: Fernando is a fourth-year CS PhD student at RPI advised by Prof. Oshani Seneviratne. He is doing research in recommendation systems in multiple domains, including finance, with an emphasis on decentralized systems. His prior and current research has had him working with open-weight large language models, financial data, blockchain, Solid, federated learning, and privacy guarantees.