Vanessa Cheng-Matsuno and Tom Paskhalis

CIVICA Data Science Days was a great opportunity to meet and learn from colleagues

Dr Tom Paskhalis

In this edition of the data science spotlight, the LSE Data Science Institute (DSI) is proud to highlight Vanessa Cheng-Matsuno and Dr Tom Paskhalis.

Vanessa and Tom were representatives of the DSI at the recent CIVICA Data Science Days conference. This event connected researchers and faculty from across CIVICA institutions and beyond at the European University Institute (EUI).

The two-day event was the first in-person conference organised by the CIVICA Data Science Seminar Series team which hosts online seminars on the use of novel methodological and data-driven approaches to tackle complex societal challenges. As part of its role within this team and in pursuit of its mission to foster the study of data science and new forms of data with a focus on their social, economic, and political impact, the DSI funded Vanessa and Tom's travel and accommodation.

The workshop successfully brought together people at different stages of their academic careers from a range of disciplines. Speaking about the event, Vanessa said "I found the workshop very interesting, where I was able to meet other early-career scholars working in diverse topics in the social sciences. We were all exploring the possibilities that data provides today, through different methods and frontier approaches using machine learning. EUI organisers were very supportive throughout our stay. Professor Kosuke Imai gave a great talk discussing if and how machine learning can actually improve human decisions in policy settings."

As part of the event, both Vanessa and Tom presented as part of a poster session. This represented an opportunity for the gathering of valuable feedback on ongoing research as researchers showcased their projects in front of a like-minded community of scholars. Reflecting on this, Tom said "CIVICA Data Science Days was a great opportunity to meet and learn from colleagues from a range of social science disciplines - all tackling their research questions with cutting-edge computational methods."

The DSI would like to thank the EUI for hosting the CIVICA Data Science Days event and its two representatives for engaging with this.

Find out more about Vanessa and Tom below.