Last month, the University of Washington’s eScience Institute and the West Hub co-hosted a special session at the 2023 Academic Data Science Alliance (ADSA) Annual Meeting, which took place in San Antonio, Texas. Specifically, the Learning and Doing Data for Good (LDDG) session encompassed an array of presentations and posters.
The 2023 session was a follow-up to a September 2022 conference where LDDG student alumni from nine different universities presented their work at the University of Washington. Because the feedback from this event was so positive, the team put together a similar forum for the ADSA meeting.
“Our main purpose for the special session at ADSA’s annual meeting was to offer students an opportunity to engage with leaders in data science while sharing the results of projects focused on broader societal impact,” said eScience Institute Director Sarah Stone, who is also a co-principal investigator on the West Big Data Innovation Hub.
The LDDG session started with a focus on posters covering an array of topics — ranging from weather radar data to arts education equality. The 13 posters were as follows:
Addressing Homelessness through Predictive Analysis: A Data Science Approach
Armaan Hiranandani, UC Berkeley undergraduate student
Building Bridges: A Collaborative, Data-Driven Framework for Arts Education Equality, Quality, and Investment in Duval County Florida
Yuanyuan Yang, Washington University in St. Louis graduate student, FL-DSSG
Amanda Yelverton, University of North Florida graduate student, FL-DSSG
Cultivating the culture of responsible data science with Model-Cart
Yonas Kassa, University of Nebraska at Omaha postdoc
Vidit Singh, University of Nebraska at Omaha graduate student
Data for Healthy Communities: Development of a High School Supplemental Course
Jessica Kulp, Ohio State University graduate student, Public Interest Technology University Network (PIT-UN)
DATAJAM: A Data Science Activity and Competition for High School Students to Introduce, Encourage and Engage Youth in Data Science in a Topic of their Choosing
Judy L. Cameron, Pittsburgh DataWorks
Data Science Discovery at UC Berkeley: Incubating and Accelerating Data Science and AI Research at a Massive Scale
Anthony Suen, UC Berkeley
Detecting roost sites from weather radar data
Sushrita Yerra, University of Mass - Amherst graduate student, Data Science For the Common Good (DS4CG)
Exploring animal behavior classification methods
Zhiqin Chen, UC Berkeley undergraduate student, Berkeley Data Discovery
FactGrid Cuneiform
Melinee Her, UC Berkeley undergraduate student, Berkeley Data Discovery
Integrated Support for Interdisciplinary Science: The University of Washington Data Science for Social Good Program
Dharma Dailey, University of Washington Research Scientist
Is Neural-ODE an Effective Method for Pharmacokinetics (PK) Modeling in Real-world Clinical Settings
Rishabh Goel, UC Berkeley recent alum, Berkeley Data Discovery
Paving Pathways: Early Identification of Non-University Outcomes
Kirtana Krishnakumar, University of Warwick Fellow, DSSGxUK
The LDDG workshop session followed the poster session and started with a panel discussion representing three experiential learning programs — DataJam at University of Pittsburgh and UC San Diego, Data Science Discovery Program (Discovery) at UC Berkeley, and Data Science for Social Good (DSSG) at the University of Washington.
After discussing their most recent work with DataJam, Discovery, and DSSG, the panelists shared their vision for a connected Data Science Experiential Pathways (DSXP) program.
Next, the session highlighted student presentations from data for good research projects around the country. One of these presentations delved into how Colorado-based organization Just As Special is utilizing big data for social good. The speakers for this talk were Ryan Chen, UC Berkeley undergraduate, Berkeley Data Discovery; Deheng Peng, UC Berkeley undergraduate, Berkeley Data Discovery; and Emmy Tither, graduate student and University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (former data architect for Just As Special).
“Our talk focused on ensuring the longevity of the data collected for Just As Special’s resource database serving the foster care community in Colorado,” Tither said. “We shared specifics on Just As Special’s work and a summary of projects completed with students from Berkeley’s Data Science Discovery program in spring 2024. While Just As Special is winding down its operations, we hope that our work can serve as inspiration for future projects across the U.S. and abroad. Thanks to our involvement with Berkeley’s program, the collected data from Just As Special’s resource database is safeguarded and available on Harvard Dataverse.”
The project called Just as Special mentioned by Tither has been partnering with the West Hub for the past several years. “We were pleased that our relationship with the group resulted in a project with the Discovery program at Berkeley,” said West Hub Executive Director Ashley Atkins. “These are the exact types of synergistic relationships that we strive to serve as a catalyst for.”
Additional LDDG talks at the ADSA meeting included the following:
Algorithmic Impact Assessment: An Agenda
Zachary Kilhoffer, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign graduate student
Optimal investment and withdrawal strategies for Education 529 Plans
Yuanjin Liu, Maryville University of Saint Louis Associate Professor
Charlotte Qin, Marquette High School student
Developing a Methodology to Estimate Census Undercounts in Florida Counties
Partha Protim Datta, University of North Florida graduate student, FL- DSSG
Heat Pumps in Alaska and Beyond
Aminat Adefolu, Central Michigan University graduate student, University of WA DSSG
Silas Gifford, UC Berkeley graduate student, University of WA DSSG
Flowing Forward: A Reproducible Workflow for Studying Groundwater Scarcity in the Colorado River Basin
Violet Huang, University of Chicago graduate student, University of WA DSSG
Kimberly Kreiss, Princeton University graduate student, University of WA DSSG
Maia Powell, UC Merced graduate student, University of WA DSSG
Aanchal Setia, University of Mass - Amherst graduate student, University of WA DSSG
Posters were also presented. Those were as follows:
Addressing Homelessness through Predictive Analysis: A Data Science Approach
Armaan Hiranandani, UC Berkeley undergraduate student
Building Bridges: A Collaborative, Data-Driven Framework for Arts Education Equality, Quality, and Investment in Duval County Florida
Yuanyuan Yang, Washington University in St. Louis graduate student, FL-DSSG
Amanda Yelverton, University of North Florida graduate student, FL-DSSG
Cultivating the culture of responsible data science with Model-Cart
Yonas Kassa, University of Nebraska at Omaha postdoc
Vidit Singh, University of Nebraska at Omaha graduate student
Data for Healthy Communities: Development of a High School Supplemental Course
Jessica Kulp, Ohio State University graduate student, Public Interest Technology University Network (PIT-UN)
DATAJAM: A Data Science Activity and Competition for High School Students to Introduce,
Encourage and Engage Youth in Data Science in a Topic of their Choosing
Judy L. Cameron, Pittsburgh DataWorks
Data Science Discovery at UC Berkeley: Incubating and Accelerating Data Science and AI Research at a Massive Scale
Anthony Suen, UC Berkeley
Detecting roost sites from weather radar data
Sushrita Yerra, University of Mass - Amherst graduate student, Data Science For the Common Good (DS4CG)
Exploring animal behavior classification methods
Zhiqin Chen, UC Berkeley undergraduate student, Berkeley Data Discovery
FactGrid Cuneiform
Melinee Her, UC Berkeley undergraduate student, Berkeley Data Discovery
Integrated Support for Interdisciplinary Science: The University of Washington Data Science for Social Good Program
Dharma Dailey, University of Washington Research Scientist
Is Neural-ODE an Effective Method for Pharmacokinetics (PK) Modeling in Real-world Clinical Settings
Rishabh Goel, UC Berkeley recent alum, Berkeley Data Discovery
Paving Pathways: Early Identification of Non-University Outcomes
Kirtana Krishnakumar, University of Warwick Fellow, DSSGxUK