Working Groups

Civic Participation

Organized by Paul Gölz (CMU), Anson Kahng (CMU), and Theia Henderson (MIT)

We study the mathematical theory of civic participation, focusing on novel modes of democratic decision making that complement traditional elections.

Conversations with Practitioners

Organized by Matthew Olckers (UNSW Sydney) and Christian Ramirez Romero (USIL)

We aim to bridge research and practice by hosting informal interviews with practitioners who work with disadvantaged and underserved communities.

Data Economies

Organized by Ali Alkhatib (University of San Francisco) and Charles Cui (Northwestern University)

The data economies and data markets working group aims to better understand the challenges that arise across the data pipeline from creation, ownership, accessibility, and sharing to data analysis and use.

Developing Nations

Organized by Tejumade Afonja (Saarland)

We are a group of academic researchers working on understanding and tackling issues pertaining to the role and application of technology in addressing challenges in emerging nations or under-resourced settings.

Discrimination

Organized by Samuel Galler, Keziah Naggita (TTIC) and Richard Lanas Philips (Cornell)

This group focuses on different research areas, such as understanding the impacts of ranking problems and design of resource allocation mechanisms.

Environment and Climate

Organized by Steven Yin (Columbia) and Cristina Crespo Montanes (UC Berkeley)

We study how computational methods can help address environmental challenges, particularly those that exacerbate the climate crisis.

Inequality

Organized by Sam Taggart (Oberlin), Chika Okafor (Harvard), and Sera Linardi (University of Pittsburg)

We study how computational methods can either address or exacerbate inequality, both globally and for vulnerable populations in the United States.

Latin America and Caribbean

Organized by Michelle González Amador (UNU-MERIT), and Juan Felipe Penagos (Fundación Ceiba)

Major themes include: migration (especially the Venezuelan diaspora), crime (with a focus on youth crime), and education (integrating/engaging at risk youth in educational systems).

Algorithms, Law, and Policy

Organized Doaa Abu-Elyounes (Harvard, Sciences Po) and Fernando Delgado (Cornell)

Some of the topics the group will work on include but are not limited to free speech, content moderation, antitrust, the use of “black box” machine learning models, data-driven algorithms, and decision-support tools.