DataFest, presented by TRIADS and Here and Next, unites the region's data scientists |
Abby Stylianou loves to think about and tinker with data.
Even when she isn’t working as an assistant professor in Saint Louis University’s Department of Computer Science, you can find her on X (formerly Twitter) digging into elaborate analyses of St. Louis City SC’s passing and shooting habits on the soccer pitch.
In short, she is an ideal member of the organizing committee behind STL DataFest, the upcoming data-centric conference that will be hosted at Washington University May 16-17. It’s an event created by data nerds, for data nerds – whether they work at a prestigious institution or not.
“When we think about data science, people may have a myopic view of what that means,” Stylianou said. “We’re hoping to bring together people from all different walks of life and all different communities that think about data, how it can be used – and how it can be used for good.”
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TRIADS Race, Technology, Equity, and Justice Meeting: FOIA requests with Sarah Swanz and Professor William Maxwell
Friday, April 12, 12:30 p.m.
Seigle Hall 109
On April 12th, Sarah Swanz and Professor William Maxwell will lead a training session on submitting Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests. FOIA grants the public the right to access records from any federal agency, providing opportunities to collect rich data for diverse research purposes. Despite its potential, navigating the process of filing requests and obtaining information can be complex. This workshop aims to demystify the process and guide participants through the ins and outs of filing FOIA requests.
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| TRIADS Speaker Series: Black Feminist Technoculture, Content Creation, and Automating Black Joy
Thursday, April 18, Noon – 1:30 p.m.
Umrath Lounge
Black women are at the forefront of some of this century’s most important discussions about technology: trolling, online harassment, algorithmic bias, and influencer culture. Within this context, it becomes imperative that we look to the Black feminist praxis of snatching joy online. In this talk, Steele considers our current social media landscape, the move from ‘users’ to content creators, and from online activism to the creation of activist brands and content. What does digital Black feminism have to offer to our conversations about online economies, artificial intelligence, and digital futures?
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TRIADS Race, Technology, Equity, and Justice Meeting: Talk by Professor Ari Stern
Friday, April 19, 11:30 a.m.
Seigle Hall 109
After every decennial Census, political districts are redrawn to reflect the shifting population. Exactly how the lines are drawn can have huge political consequences, and efforts to manipulate the process through "gerrymandering" are nearly as old as redistricting itself. Professor Ari Stern will discuss some novel mathematical and computational tools that are being used to analyze districting plans to combat gerrymandering.
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| AI and Society Brunch
Friday, May 3, 10 a.m. – Noon
Location TBA
The TRIADS AI and Society Nexus Group will host its first meeting on Friday, May 3, from 10 a.m. – noon. The group aims to bring together researchers from across Wash U whose work addresses the broader social, cultural, political and ethical implications of artificial intelligence. Scholars from all fields are welcome. The event will consist of brief presentations on ongoing Wash U research projects in this area, as well as discussion time for participants to meet new potential collaborators. Brunch will be served.
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TRIADS Lightning Talk Competition
Thursday, May 9
3 – 4:30 p.m.
DUC 276
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Are you a PhD Student doing research with data? Join the TRIADS Lightning Talk Competition! TRIADS is recruiting 8 students across disciplines to give a 3-minute lightning talk about their research to all members of the WashU community. Each selected speaker will receive a $30 speaker fee.
During the presentations, members of the audience will vote and judge the quality of each talk. The winner of the competition will receive an additional $100 prize! Second place prize of $50.
If you’re interested in participating in the TRIADS Lightning Talk Competition, please fill out this Google Form to apply. The application deadline is Thursday, April 25th, and we will announce the selected speakers on April 26th.
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Upcoming TRIADS Workshops |
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Introduction to R
Tuesday, April 9 – Friday, April 26
12:30 – 2 p.m.
Olin Library, Instruction Room 1
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This six-session course will introduce the R programming language. Designed to build foundational skills, this course acts as a precursor to more specialized courses, whether at TRIADS or elsewhere. We will explore the components of the R/RStudio working environment, delve into handling diverse data structures in R (including vectors, matrices, and data frames), and acquire the skill to create and apply our own functions. The course is structured for maximum accessibility, making it suitable for those with no prior background in any programming language or quantitative methods.
You can still sign up for this course, as five sessions remain!
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Machine Learning for Sentiment Analysis
Monday, April 15
12 – 2 p.m.
Olin Library, Instruction Room 1
This single-session workshop aims to introduce participants to machine learning methods for sentiment analysis. Sentiment analysis is a research method that aims to classify text in terms of its emotional valence, such as the degree to which it is positive or negative, or what emotions the text is conveying (happy, worried, angry etc.) This workshop will train participants in how to analyze a text-based dataset using pre-trained sentiment analysis models, using the Python programming language.
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| Deep Learning in Python
Tuesday, April 23 & Thursday April 25
2 – 3:30 p.m.
Olin Library, Instruction Room 3
This two-course seminar aims to equip participants with an advanced understanding of deep learning, a subfield of machine learning that employs Deep Neural Networks to address ML challenges, particularly on datasets associated with text and images. Participants will gain insights into the functioning of neural networks and the types of problems for which they are most effective. Additionally, they will acquire the skills to run pre-trained models as well as train custom models in PyTorch using their own data.
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Intermediate R for Data Visualization and Management
Monday, April 29 – Wednesday, May 8
12:30 – 2 p.m.
Olin Library, Instruction Room 3
This four-session course offers an intermediate step to performing data science using R. Participants will discover how to manage data into R, organize it effectively, manipulate, and visualize it. The course covers the use of the grammar of graphics, literate programming, and principles of reproducible research to enhance efficiency. This course is ideal for individuals with previous experience in R. This class will be fully in-person, and participants will use their own laptops.
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| Leveraging Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) in R
Thursday, May 9,
12:30 – 2 p.m.
Location TBA
This one-session course offers a step-by-step to connect to APIs directly from R. This workshop provides participants with the foundational knowledge and skills to import data from various APIs into R. Whether you're dealing with financial markets, social media analytics, or any other domain with data, this session is designed to equip you with the techniques to harness this information efficiently. This course is ideal for individuals with previous experience in R.
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St. Louis Policy Initiative Conference
Friday, April 19, 8 a.m. – 5:30 p.m.
Knight Center, Classroom 340
This event will bring together academics and practitioners to discuss public policy in the St. Louis Region. Objectives will include discussing public policy challenges and opportunities, introducing new tools for research and teaching, and facilitating research collaborations between academics and community partners, all with a focus on the St. Louis region.
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Statistics and Data Science Seminars, co-sponsored by TRIADS |
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Boosting e-BH via conditional calibration
Presenter: Zhimei Ren, University of Pennsylvania
Wednesday, April 17, 11 a.m.
Sever Hall, Room 102
In this talk, Ren proposes a general framework that boosts the power of e-BH without sacrificing its FDR control under arbitrary dependence.
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An Interdisciplinary Approach for Identifying Partisan Gerrymandering
Presenter: Wendy Cho, Vanderbilt University
Wednesday, April 24, 11 a.m.
Sever Hall, Room 102
Important insights into redistricting can be gained through an interdisciplinary approach that combines research from many fields, including statistics, operations research, computer science, high performance computing, math, law, and political science.
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If you are interested in any of the grant opportunities below, please reach out to Dr. Bhavna Hirani, Senior Research Development Associate, for assistance.
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NSF: Civic Innovation Challenge (CIVIC)
Deadline: May 1, 2024
The Civic Innovation Challenge (CIVIC) is a research and action competition that accelerates the transition to practice of foundational research and emerging technologies into communities through civic-engaged research. By addressing priorities at the local scale that are relevant across the US, CIVIC is laying the foundation for a broader and more fluid exchange of research and technology capabilities and civic priorities through joint partnerships involving civic partners and the research community.
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NSF: Dear Colleague Letter: Catalyzing human-centered solutions through research and innovation in science, the environment and society
Concept outline (2 pages) due: May 1, 2024
NSF invites planning proposals for up to $100,000 that will catalyze multi-disciplinary and transdisciplinary research led by social science investigations to improve human livelihoods and support healthy ecosystems by driving discoveries and findings from these areas of research addressing any problems associated with community vulnerability, resource depletion, environmental degradation, group and regional conflict, prejudice, poverty, crime, and violence.
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NSF: Sustainable Regional Systems Research Networks
Full proposal deadline: May 15, 2024
The goal of this solicitation by NSF is to fund convergent research and education that will advance sustainable regional systems science, engineering, and education to facilitate the transformation of current regional systems to enhance sustainability.
The networks will conduct fundamental research and education that is of a scale and complexity that would not be possible within a single organization, center, or through the normal collaborative modes of NSF research support in core programs.
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NSF: Data Science Corps
Proposal target date: June 21, 2024
The objective of the Data Science Corps program is to help build a strong national data science infrastructure and workforce. The Data Science Corps program seeks to engage data science students in real-world data science implementation projects. This engagement will help bridge the data-to-knowledge gap in organizations and communities at all levels, including local, state, and national, and will empower better use of data for more effective decision making.
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Do you have feedback or want to submit an item for a future newsletter? Let us know at triads@wustl.edu.
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