CISS/Spark! Partnership Supports Innovative New Social Science Projects
The Center for Innovation in Social Science and BU Spark! have partnered to bring together faculty and graduate student social scientists with data science students to generate cutting-edge new research. BU Spark!, led by director Ziba Cranmer, is a technology incubator and experiential learning lab for student-led computational and data driven projects at BU.
CISS/Spark! issued a call for applications in Fall 2023, to provide pilot grants for up to three social science research projects that required data science or computational support. This joint initiative was funded by a generous gift dedicated to experiential learning initiatives in the College of Arts and Sciences (CAS), led by Dean Stan Sclaroff. The Call received far more proposals than pilot grants slots available, so Spark! matched five additional proposed projects with Computing & Data Science (CDS) courses, for BU undergraduates to carry out in Spring or Summer ’24. CISS extends our gratitude to Spark! director Ziba Cranmer, program lead Seth Villegas, and data science solutions engineer Michelle Voong, who consulted with each applicant to ensure that that their research goals were achieved, and to establish the most effective partnership with CDS student researchers. Read on to learn more about the funded research projects.
| CISS/Spark!-Funded Pilot Projects | Project Title/Topic | |
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Ana Barun (CISS affiliate and GRS, Anthropology & Archaeology) | Modeling the Role of the Adriatic Coastal Zone Refugium and its Implications for Late Pleistocene Hominin Dispersals and Migrations |
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Jilene Chua (CISS affiliate and CAS/History) | Marginal Cosmopolitans: U.S. Colonial Law and Chinese Life in the Philippines |
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Bo Feng (CISS affiliate and GRS/Political Science) | Strategic Allocation of Discretionary Power under Authoritarianism: Elite Competition and Policymaking in Contemporary China |
| Social Scientists’ Projects Matched with CDS Courses | Project Title/Topic | |
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Andrea Beltran-Lizararo (CISS affiliate and GRS/Sociology) | Drug-Related Extradictions in Colombia |
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Thomas Byrne (CISS affiliate and SSW) | Predicting Community Rates of Homelessness |
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Rosella Cappella Zielinski (CISS affiliate and Political Science) | Risk and Uncertainties Involved in Global Maritime Trade |
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Tatiana Padilla (CISS Postdoctoral Associate | Community Impacts of Immigration Raids |
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Molly Richard (CISS Postdoctoral Associate) | Visualizing Hidden Homelessness |
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Kajia Schilde (Pardee) | Dual Role of Contractors: Regulation and Creation |