Jonathan Leslie's guest appearances

Jonathan Leslie

Israel Studies Seminar

Datacast

David Tal

David Sweet

Sara Hooker

Brian O'Neill

Cody Coleman

Sarah Catanzaro

William Cavanaugh

Tony Shaw

Ali Alavi

Tamar Calahorra

Nancy Hawker

Moriel Ram

Yaacov Yadgar

Yehouda Shenhav

Elizabeth Shakman Hurd

OwlTail

Jonathan Leslie considers the history of Iran's "becoming" and existential threat in Israel  Years after the Islamic Republic of Iran resumed its nuclear development program, Israeli leaders began constructing a narrative aimed at instilling in their polity the fear of Iran as an existential threat to the Jewish State. Building upon Israel’s geopolitical insecurity, politicians, assisted by societal elites, repeatedly claimed that the imminent acquisition of a bomb by Iran’s religious fundamentalist regime undermined Israel’s security and threatened the stability of the world order. This project examines how Israeli leaders crafted a narrative in which Iran’s rulers sought the destruction of Israel; how the Israeli public internalized this perception of Iran as an enemy; and how Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu incorporated this message into his foreign policy agenda and used it in efforts to secure the support of international allies. Through the lens of securitization theory, this project analyzes primary source documents to show the divergence between the narrative’s content and historical facts. In doing so, it highlights how perception eclipses reality when a powerful securitizing actor claiming exclusive access to material information identifies a threat source and publicly promotes its danger. It then examines how Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu strategically embraced populist strategies to advocate for extraordinary action against Iran and to bolster his status as a leader and national protector. Taking advantage of Israel’s failure in the Second Lebanon War and Iran’s election of a radical and bombastic president, Netanyahu chose resonant tropes – misusing history, recasting Holocaust memory, and fashioning an overarching moral imperative – to create a permanent crisis and secure Israelis’ acquiescence. By 2015, however, he had failed to convince international powers that a negotiated deal suspending Iran’s nuclear enrichment program would make Israel and the world less safe. This project contributes to our understanding of current and future developments in the Israel-Iran enmity, both predictable and unanticipated.

Jonathan Leslie - Fear and Insecurity: Competing Narratives of the Iran-Israel Relationship 

Show Notes:  (2:10) Jon reflects on his academic career and explained why he pursued an advanced degree in Biology. He also went over his post-doc fellowship at Cancer Research UK. (4:45) Jon discusses the zebra-fish project he worked on during his post-doc research at King’s College London. (8:13) Jon talks about the developmental biology work he did at the embryology lab at University College London. (10:00) Jon explains why biological data are noisy. (10:58) Jon explains his motivation behind his transition from academia to industry. (15:04) Jon’s advice for Ph.D. students and post-doc researchers who want to make a similar transition. (16:20) Jon talks about his freelance data science project to build a recommendation systems aiming at women struggling with Type 2 diabetes. (21:32) Jon talks about his experience running his data science consultancy business. (25:32) Jon’s advice to improve data storytelling skill. (26:59) Jon presents a high-level overview of his company Pivigo. (31:11) Jon talks about his role as Pivigo’s Head of Data Science. (34:50) Jon goes over the industries that are Pivigo’s clients. (36:30) Jon goes over the skills that data science talents need to develop. (37:53) Jon’s advice to transition from individual contributor to manager. (41:51) Jon mentions the talks he gave recently at O’Reilly Strata Data Conference in London. (46:48) Closing segment.  His contact info:  Twitter LinkedIn GitHub  His recommended resources:  Datacamp David Robinson's "Understanding empirical Bayes estimation" "R for Data Science" by Hadley Wickham and Garrett Grolemund #rstats

Show Notes: <ul> <li>(2:10) Jon reflects on his academic career and explained why he pursued an advanced degree in Biology. He also went over his post-doc fellowship at <a href="https://www.cancerresearchuk.org/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Cancer Research UK</a>.</li> <li>(4:45) Jon discusses the zebra-fish project he worked on during his post-doc research at <a href="https://www.kcl.ac.uk/index.aspx" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">King’s College London</a>.</li> <li>(8:13) Jon talks about the developmental biology work he did at the embryology lab at <a href="https://www.ucl.ac.uk/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">University College London</a>.</li> <li>(10:00) Jon explains why biological data are noisy.</li> <li>(10:58) Jon explains his motivation behind his transition from academia to industry.</li> <li>(15:04) Jon’s advice for Ph.D. students and post-doc researchers who want to make a similar transition.</li> <li>(16:20) Jon talks about his freelance data science project to build a recommendation systems aiming at women struggling with Type 2 diabetes.</li> <li>(21:32) Jon talks about his experience running his data science consultancy business.</li> <li>(25:32) Jon’s advice to improve data storytelling skill.</li> <li>(26:59) Jon presents a high-level overview of his company <a href="https://www.pivigo.com/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Pivigo</a>.</li> <li>(31:11) Jon talks about his role as Pivigo’s Head of Data Science.</li> <li>(34:50) Jon goes over the industries that are Pivigo’s clients.</li> <li>(36:30) Jon goes over the skills that data science talents need to develop.</li> <li>(37:53) Jon’s advice to transition from individual contributor to manager.</li> <li>(41:51) Jon mentions the talks he gave recently at O’Reilly Strata Data Conference in London.</li> <li>(46:48) Closing segment.</li> </ul> His contact info: <ul> <li><a href="https://twitter.com/jlesliedata" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Twitter</a></li> <li><a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/jonathan-leslie-425ab735/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">LinkedIn</a></li> <li><a href="https://github.com/jonleslie" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">GitHub</a></li> </ul> His recommended resources: <ul> <li><a href="https://www.datacamp.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Datacamp</a></li> <li>David Robinson's "<a href="http://varianceexplained.org/r/empirical_bayes_baseball/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Understanding empirical Bayes estimation</a>"</li> <li>"<a href="https://r4ds.had.co.nz/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">R for Data Science</a>" by Hadley Wickham and Garrett Grolemund</li> <li><a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/rstats" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">#rstats</a></li></ul>

Episode 1: Molecular Biologist turned Data Scientist with Jonathan Leslie