News

People’s habits die hard and many seemingly reasonable change interventions have little or no effect. If those who propose changes sit behind their desks, they will find it hard to understand the lived realities of the people who would be the target of the interventions.

DSI Affiliate Dr Jens Koed Madsen writes that, to avoid failure, proponents must be humble, listen to each other and engage with stakeholders in the target communities.

Read the full article here.

Congratulations to DSI Affiliate Dr Michael Muthukrishna for being named a Rising Star by the Human Behavior and Evolution Society (HBES)

This award is presented to outstanding individuals in the earliest stages of their research careers post-PhD.

Find out more

More information about this transformative gift is available here.

Keep up to date with upcoming DSI activities and updates by joining the mailing list and by following the DSI on Twitter and LinkedIn.

DSI Affiliates Dr Milena Tsvetkova and Dr Eleanor Power were invited to give talks as part of NetSci 2022.

This interdisciplinary event that brought together experts to explore concepts such as algorithmic bias.

This satellite represented an excellent opportunity for our DSI Affiliates to contribute to the developing holistic picture of structured inequalities by connecting withexperts from various areas, including theoretical network science, analytical social science, complex systems, and computational social science.

More information is here.

DSI Affiliate Dr Patrick Gildersleve has published the preprint of a new chapter that will appear in a forthcoming book.

In this chapter titled Collective Memory in the Digital Age, Patrick and co-authors Taha Yasseri and Lea David discuss the difference between 'digitalised collective memory' and 'digital collective memory'.

The chapter explores how digital tools and trace data can open the study of collective memory that is formed inside and outside of the digital space.

DSI Affiliate Dr Eleanor Power's research has been showcased as part of the LSE 2021 Research Excellence Framework.

Elly's outstanding research into the role of religion in society was inspired by its meaning for individuals and subsequent impact on how people relate to one another.

Learn more about this research here.

The DSI is proud of its network of Affiliates who are based across LSE Departments. These individuals are engaged with data science in their research or teaching.

DSI Affiliates based in the Department of Methodology have been featured in a new In Conversation... close-up to mark the 30th Anniversary of the Department of Methodology.

Affiliates Dr Blake Miller, Dr Eleanor Power, Dr Milena Tsvetkova and Dr Siân Brooke share personal reflections, insights and future plans. They are joined in doing so by DSI Director Professor Ken Benoit and DSI Management Committee member Professor Patrick Sturgis.

LSE researchers were hosted by the Imperial College London Data Science Institute at a Research Networking Event on 14 June.

This was the first event in a new collaboration between the LSE Data Science Institute and ICL Data Science Institute named 'DSI Squared'. This programme will form links between the institutions.

The event took the form of 'speed dating' whereby researchers were given the chance to meet each other in time-limited meetings. Participants considered their research interests in advance and completed contact cards summarising these as well as their future research wishes. These cards were exchanged at the end of each conversation to foster future collaboration.

This event took place at the new Translation & Innovation Hub (I-Hub) in White City, London. More information is available here.

The LSE Data Science Institute (DSI) is proud of its active community of DSI Affiliates who explore the role of data and data science in a range of disciplines.

Dr Neil Cummins works at the intersection of "big data" and economic history to exploit recently digitised historical genealogical data and answer questions about the origin of modern economic and demographic behaviour.

Neil will speak at an event within the LSE Festival that explores wealth inequality and the political challenges involved in addressing this.

Find more information here.

The LSE Data Science Institute was pleased to organise a student trip to Google CSG as part of a series of events that aims to offer opportunities to LSE students with an interest in pursuing careers in data, data science and technology.

This type of in-person experience is invaluable for students as it enables them to picture different potential careers that their degree could lead into.

The visit was hosted by Ties Boukema and the DSI would like to thank Ties and his colleagues for agreeing to host this visit.

More information is available here.

The LSE Data Science Institute (DSI) is proud to congratulate DSI Affiliate Dr Marcos Barreto on his appointment as the new Editor of The International Journal of Population Data Science (IJPDS).

IJPDS is an electronic, open‑access, peer-reviewed journal that focuses on the science pertaining to population data. It publishes articles on all aspects of research, development and evaluation connected with data about people and populations.

Find out more about Marcos here.

Senior Policy Fellow in Ethics of Modelling and Simulation Dr Erica Thompson has been featured on the Pondering AI podcast.

In an episode titled 'AI’s World View' Erica exposes the seductive allure of model land: a place where life is simply predictable and all your assumptions are true.

Erica shares her thoughts on topics such as artificial intelligence, mathematical models and data-driven decision making with Kimberly Nevala of SAS. Find more information here.

The LSE Data Science Institute is proud to share Professor Ken Benoit's Impact Case Study as part of the 2021 Research Excellence Framework (REF).

Ken has led research that has underpinned the development of new and improved methods of quantitative text analysis for social science research.

The powerful new tool for text analysis has been of benefit to many, as shown by Swiss start-up policy and data analytics company Grünenfelder Zumbach who refer to the tools as their "first choice when dealing with large amounts of text, because it is fast and stable, it offers many possibilities to quickly find patterns, and it provides excellent interfaces for further analysis."

Learn more about REF 2021 here.

The LSE Data Science Institute is delighted to welcome Dr Kei Kobayashi as a new Visiting Fellow.

Kei is an Associate Professor in the Department of Mathematics at Keio University, Japan. His research interests include theoretical statistics, Bayesian prediction, information geometry and algebraic statistics. He is also a Visiting Associate Professor at the Institute of Statistical Mathematics and a Visiting Researcher at RIKEN AIP. He has been a Co-Editor of Annals of the Institute of Statistical Mathematics since October 2021.

DSI Affiliate Dr Milena Tsvetkova and Research Student Yuanmo He have coauthored a new journal article.

The article is titled A Method for Estimating Individual Socioeconomic Status of Twitter Users and takes advantage of the new opportunities to expore social science questions with data that are available following the rise of social media and computational social science (CSS).

The authors analyse the socioeconomic status of over 3,000,000 Twitter users, with the proposed method opening new opportunities for innovative social research on inequality on Twitter and similar online platforms.

DSI Affiliate Dr Marcos Barreto has been awarded an Eden Centre Inclusive Education Action Plan (IEAP) Fellowship.

Marcos is an Assistant Professorial Lecturer in the Department of Statistics and will lead a project focused on data science teaching and assessment. Details of this project are below.

Title: Decolonising Data Science teaching and assessment

This project focuses on two aspects related to data science education in light of decolonising: teaching and assessment. Is the way data science is taught adequate and inclusive, or is everyone forced to fit the same model? Do evaluative activities in data science teaching effectively measure students’ critical and innovative ability or purely their technical capacity to memorize and repeat the same solutions? Also, whether the assessment is guided by the instructor’s personal belief and experience in drawing “correct solutions” rather than students’ understanding of the problem and subsequent solution. These are some initial questions leading this study.

Key outcomes comprise i) identifying the origins of data science teaching – who has established this basic structure and based on which coloniality context; ii) checking whether teaching staff and students are aware of and concerned with these problems, and thus keen to (re)evaluate their beliefs and practices towards decolonising and inclusivity; and iii) serving as an initial discussion of practical actions towards decolonising data science teaching and assessment at the department level.

Congratulations, Marcos!

The LSE Data Science Institute is proud to support efforts to get women into data science and make progress towards gender equality.

On International Women's Day 2022, our data science spotlight celebrates women's achievement and raises awareness against bias by showcasing the success of a leading woman from our community, Dr Milena Tsvetkova.

A sociologist by training, DSI Affiliate Milena is a role model in the field of computational social science. She uses computational methods such as social network analysis, agent-based modelling, and machine learning to study social phenomena.

Read more information here.

The LSE Data Science Institute (DSI) was proud to support the recent Data Science Weekend.

This event took place across the weekend of 26 - 27 February 2022 and was organised by students in the LSESU Data Science Society.

Speaking about the event, Dr Jonathan Cardoso-Silva said "I was really happy to see the creativity and passion LSE students have for data science. The event was very well organised, and I was very happy to participate."

More information is available here.

DSI Management Committee member Professor Patrick Sturgis has published a new working paper with Professor Jouni Kuha.

This working paper is titled 'How survey mode affects estimates of the prevalence of gambling harm: a multisurvey study' and explores recent general population surveys that have produced highly variable estimates of the extent of problem gambling. The uncertainty is shown through a range from as low as 0.4% to as high as 2.7% of adults, which creates difficulties for policy makers and those planning treatment and support services.

The authors argue that online surveys, whether using probability or non-probability sampling, overrepresent people who are more likely to gamble online and to gamble frequently.

Keep up to date with Patrick on Twitter.

The LSE Data Science Institute was proud to host a research presentation from Visiting Student Clint Claessen this afternoon.

Clint presented his research to members of the LSE Data Science community, sharing a working paper titled 'Voter Signalling or Coalition Adjustment? Party Competition and Environmental Speeches in the German Bundestag'.

In this paper, Clint and co-authors examine legislative debate as an arena of party politics using environmental legislative speeches in the German Bundestag their case.

Specifically, the working paper investigates whether and how the Green Party makes their debate contributions on environmental issues more salient and more (or less) distinctive from other parties and how these other parties respond in turn.

The empirical analyses of the paper relies on a large corpus of Bundestag speeches spanning almost three decades, and – using a dictionary approach and a supervised machine learning classifier – thens measure the salience of environmental issues and the distinctiveness of legislative speech.

Clint's research was recently the focus of our data science spotlight, with Professor Ken Benoit commenting that "Clint's innovative work applies machine learning methods to political science, to produce insights into party leadership, unity and party discipline."

Keep up to date with Clint on Twitter.

DSI Affiliate Dr Siân Brooke appears on the latest episode of the Anti-Dystopians podcast, hosted by Alina Utrata.

The Anti-Dystopians podcast explores issues of politics and technology, with Siân discussing her doctoral research on memes, gender, and in-person hackathons.

This research on "brogrammers, geeks, incels and memes" explores questions such as what incels and programmers have in common, and how memes reinforce sexism in computing.

Listen to the full podcast episode here.

Senior Policy Fellow Dr Erica Thompson has been featured by LSE Research and Innovation on the 7th anniversary of the International Day for Women and Girls in Science.

This day recognises the role of women and girls in the fields of science, technology, engineering and mathematics, not only as beneficiaries of science, but also as agents of change. Women still typically receive smaller research grants than male colleagues and are underrepresented in cutting edge fields such as artificial intelligence, computer science and informatics.

To mark this occasion, Dr Erica Thompson was highlighted by LSE Research and Innovation,

Erica was a recent recipient of the UK Research and Innovation Future Leaders Fellowship and commented:

"If there's one thing I would highlight on the International Day for Women and Girls in Science, it's that feminist and decolonial perspectives on data science methods are essential critiques which can help us understand and constrain the power of modern science and computing so that they work for the welfare of all and not just profit for the few."

Keep up to date with Erica on Twitter.

DSI Director Professor Ken Benoit will chair the upcoming Careers in Data Science panel event within the LSE Careers Data and Tech Programme.

This event aims to offer an opportunity for students interested in the data and technology sector to gain insights and learn about career options and opportunities available. Ken will chair a discussion featuring panelists from Mastercard, Smart Odds, Google and more.

This event takes place at 18:00 (GMT) on Thursday 17 February 2022. LSE students can sign up here.

DSI Affiliate Dr Milena Tsvetkova has published a new article in Network Science.

This article is titled Cheating in online gaming spreads through observation and victimization and studies the spread of cheating in over a million matches of an online multiplayer first-person shooter game.

This article is co-authored by former MSc Applied Social Data Science student Ji Eun Kim.

The LSE Data Science Institute (DSI) is proud to collaborate with other institutions within the CIVICA Research network.

Recently, the DSI hosted a research hackathon to find out why societies have had such different experiences of COVID.

In a new LSE blog, DSI Director Professor Ken Benoit explains what happened and how this event will help us to answer questions such as 'Why does the impact of COVID vary so much, both across and within countries?'

Read the full blog here.

As the hub of data science activity at LSE, the Data Science Institute (DSI) is proud and privileged to host Visiting Students from other leading institutions within the wider data science community.

In Lent Term of 2022, Clint Claessen joins the DSI from the Department of Social Sciences at the University of Basel. Our latest data science spotlight showcases Clint's research on the leaders of political parties.

Clint's research has impressed DSI Director Professor Ken Benoit, who commented "Clint's innovative work applies machine learning methods to political science, to produce insights into party leadership, unity and party discipline".

Read the full spotlight here.

DSI Affiliate Dr Neil Cummins has published a new LSE Economic History blog titled Coronavirus from the perspective of 17th century plague.

Between 1563 and 1665, London experienced four plagues that each killed one fifth of the city’s inhabitants. Using 790,000 burial records, Neil tracks the plagues that recurred across London.

The blog explores two ways in which these plague epidemics differed from COVID-19. The first of these is that the 17th century plague was almost invariably lethal and the second difference being in the persistence of outbreaks.

Keep up to date with Neil on Twitter.

DSI Affiliate Dr Eleanor Power has co-authored a new article, published as part of the Royal Society theme issue ‘The centennial of the pecking order: current state and future prospects for the study of dominance hierarchies’.

This article explores social networks across species, and how they are often governed by dominance relations. The authors synthesise work across the social sciences and observe that humans not only navigate multiple social hierarchies at any given time but also simultaneously operate within multiple, overlapping social networks.

Keep up to date with Eleanor on Twitter.

Dr Erica Thompson has co-authored a new article on The value of values in climate science.

This article explains that values are currently not widely acknowledged or discussed within physical climate science. Yet, effective management of values in physical climate science is required for the benefit of both science and society.

The authors describe how values shape choices at all levels from methodology to communication, and ask for wider reflection on management of social values in climate science.

Erica's co-authors are Karoliina Pulkkinen, Sabine Undorf, Dr Frida Bender, Per Wikman-Svahn, Francisco Doblas-Reyes, Clare Flynn, Gabriele C. Hegerl, Aiden Jönsson, Gah-Kai Leung, Joe Roussos and Theodore G. Shepherd.

Keep up to date with Erica on Twitter.

The LSE Data Science Institute (DSI) was proud to host the recent CIVICA Research: Collaborative Hackathon on Data-Driven Technologies for Social Sciences.

This event took place on 16 December 2021, with participants sharing their expertise and skills to solve a specific but pressing issue of our time: the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic across and within different countries.

The Hackathon was open to students, researchers, academics and other interested citizens and professionals within and beyond the CIVICA alliance. Many engaging presentations were given by leading experts in the field and recordings of the presentations are now available on the DSI YouTube channel and can be found below:

- Dr Miqdad Asaria opened the event with a presentation titled 'From Epidemiology to Politics'.

- Dr Alex Scacco (WZB) spoke on the Political and Social Correlates of COVID-19.

- Dr Tara Slough (NYU) introduced the Hackathon tasks to participants.

- Haoyu Zhai (EUI) introduced the COVID-19 Model Challenges Project.

- Professor Alberto Diaz-Cayeros (Stanford University) explored how to extend the COVID-19 Model Challenge to the Classroom.

DSI Affiliate Dr Eleanor Power has published a new article in Network Science with Elspeth Ready.

This article is titled 'Measuring reciprocity: Double sampling, concordance, and network construction' and explores network sampling and methods of aggregation.

The article explains how directed networks provide ways to examine reciprocity in a community, and how making assumptions about relationships when measuring social networks can impact observed reciprocity.

The authors use multilevel exponential random graph models of social support networks from 75 villages in India to argue that methods of aggregation should depend on the research question, the context, and the relationship in question.

We are proud to highlight the activity of our DSI Affiliates. These members of the LSE community are engaged with data science in their research or teaching. Find out how to become a DSI Affiliate here.

Keep up to date with Eleanor on Twitter.

The LSE Data Science Institute (DSI) is proud to involve members of external institutions in its work through the Visiting Appointments Scheme.

John Burn-Murdoch, Chief Data Reporter at the Financial Times and DSI Visiting Senior Fellow, is hosting a Twitter Spaces session on the subject of 'What do we know about the Omicron variant so far?'.

This discussion takes place at 14:00 GMT (09:00 ET) and will also feature Clive Cookson, Hannah Kuchler, Oliver Barnes, Sarah Neville and Donato Mancini.

The LSE Data Science Institute (DSI) is proud to welcome the newest members of the DSI Affiliate Scheme.

These LSE colleagues are engaged with data science in their research and/or teaching. By becoming DSI Affiliates they gain special access to DSI resources and will participate in DSI activities.

The new DSI Affiliates include Dr Siân Brooke whose Leverhulme research focuses on gender differences in programming and technical collaboration. Siân was recently the focus of our data science spotlight.

Another new DSI Affiliate is George Maier who engages critically with digital platforms' use of algorithmic management, as well as the how data shapes digital inequalities.

Co-lead of the LSE100 module 'How can we control AI?' Dr Chris Blunt also joins the DSI Affiliate Scheme. Chris works on issues relating to data gathering, appraisal and meta-analysis in clinical trials.

The DSI is also proud to welcome Dr Rachel Spicer to our community. Rachel is Chief Data Scientist for the Database of Religious History (DRH) and applies data science methods to investigate cultural evolution.

Professor in Data Science Dr Zoltan Szabo has also become a DSI Affiliate. A member of the Department of Statistics, Zoltan's research interests include statistical machine learning with focus on kernel methods, information theory and scalable computation.

Alexandra Gomes has also become a DSI Affiliate. Alexandra uses spatial datasets to explore urbanisation patterns, spatial inequalities, and its impacts on society and the environment.

The final new DSI Affiliate announced today is Dr Neil Cummins. Neil works at the intersection of ‘big data’ and economic history, constructing and analysing historical big data sets.

Visiting Student Philipp Darius has co-authored a new article published in Online Social Networks and Media.

This article is titled 'Disinformed social movements: A large-scale mapping of conspiracy narratives as online harms during the COVID-19 pandemic' and aims to explore the high level of uncertainty that was caused by COVID-19.

This uncertainty provided a perfect breeding ground for spreading conspiratorial anti-science narratives based on disinformation. This study monitors two of the established conspiracy narratives and their communities on Twitter, the anti-vaccination and anti-5G communities, before and during the first UK lockdown.

Philipp and his co-author Michael Urquhart find that, despite content moderation efforts by Twitter, conspiracy groups were able to proliferate their networks and influence broader public discourse.

Dr Erica Thompson has coauthored a new journal article published in Climatic Change.

Erica is a Senior Policy Fellow in Ethics of Modelling and Simulation and argues that probability distributions of future climate change do not accurately represent genuine levels of uncertainty.

The paper addresses the questions of when probability distribution functions (PDFs) about the future climate misrepresent uncertainty, how to recognise when such misrepresentation occurs and thus avoid it, and what to use if not a PDF.

Other co-authors of this article are Dr Joel Katzav, Dr James Risbey, Dr David Stainforth, Dr Seumas Bradley, and Professor Mathias Frisch.

DSI Affiliate Dr Kate Vredenburgh has designed a new LSE online masterclass in Ethics of AI.

As artificial intelligence (AI) adoption becomes more commonplace, so do questions of the ethics surrounding the design and implementation of it. This course develops the tools and skills that enable students to ethically reason with and manage the diverse impacts of AI on individuals and society.

This three-week long course offers students the chance to apply moral concepts such as inequality, fairness, and transparency to real-world situations to better understand and resolve ethical dilemmas.

Find out more about Kate here.

The LSE Data Science Institute (DSI) is proud to collaborate with CIVICA Network partners in hosting the CIVICA Data Science Seminar Series.

These seminars span different disciplines and approaches, highlighting original and in-progress research in data science.

Dr Erica Thompson is the DSI representative within the seminar management committee and introduces the seminar series in a new video interview. This can be found here or on YouTube.

Erica answers a range of questions about the seminars, letting us know how she got involved with CIVICA, what topics the seminars cover, and which speaker has been her favourite.

The partner institutions involved in this seminar series are the LSE Data Science Institute, Hertie School Data Science Lab, CEU Department of Network and Data Science, Bocconi Institute for Data Science and Analytics, Sciences Po médialab and European University Institute Tech Cluster.

As businesses, governments and academic institutions increasingly rely on data when making decisions, a key issue for these bodies is addressing the skills gap that exists in the field of data science.

The LSE Data Science Institute (DSI) is proud to offer new undergraduate courses for 2021/22 as part of a range of data science study opportunities at LSE that equip students, researchers and executives with the skills they need to tackle business, science and social questions from a data perspective.

One of these new DSI undergraduate modules is DS202 - Data Science for Social Scientists, which is led by Dr Julio Amador Diaz Lopez. Julio is the focus of our latest data science spotlight, offering a reflection on teaching DS202 so far by asking the question "What makes a good data scientist?".

Find out Julio's answer to this question here.

As data volumes continue to grow, the ability to transform this information into actionable business insights is a key capability in the ‘Age of Analytics’.

The LSE Data Analytics Career Accelerator is an example of how LSE recognises this, with the course aiming to accelerate careers through both its subject focus and education model. Developed in collaboration with leading technology companies, this programme prepares you to accelerate your career as a Data Analyst in the digital economy.

The course was developed by LSE faculty from the Departments of Methodology and Statistics, including DSI Affiliates Dr Milena Tsvetkova and Dr Blake Miller.

DSI Affiliate Dr Milena Tsvetkova has been invited to lead an upcoming Population-scale Network Analysis (POPNET) webinar on computational data science.

Milena's discussion is titled 'Using networks to study inequality: two examples' and will focus on the topic of how daily decisions and social interactions reproduce socioeconomic inequality.

Milena will present two projects that use radically different computational and analytical methods to address this. In the first example, Milena's research conducts online network cooperation experiments to study whether the visibility of outcome-relevant resources (ability, intelligence, knowledge, etc.) and the visibility of wealth could improve inequality. In the second example, the bipartite network of verified Twitter accounts of companies, brands, and organisations and their followers is used to estimate the socioeconomic status of individual Twitter users.

POPNET is a new research data infrastructure for network science and computational social science. More information is available here.

The LSE Data Science Institute (DSI) works with academic departments across LSE to foster the study of data science and new forms of data.

The Department of Statistics is one of the world's leading centres of quantitative methods in the social sciences and is holding an Open Day for aspiring PhD Statistics students who are keen to formulate authentic, cutting-edge research in Data Science, Probability in Finance and Insurance, Social Statistics, and Time Series and Statistical Learning.

Academics from the Department including DSI Affiliates Dr Joshua Loftus, Dr Kostas Kalogeropoulos, Dr Chengchun Shi, Dr Yunxiao Chen, Professor Piotr Fryzlewicz, Dr Xinghao Qiao, and Professor Umut Cetin will offer useful insights through providing talks in their research areas. This will be followed by one to one sessions and social activities during the day.

Find out more information about this event and register here.

The LSE Data Science Institute (DSI) is pleased to have been recognised by Celonis as a new Process Mining Centre of Excellence. This award was announced at the Celonis Ecosystem Summit on 21 September 2021.

The LSE application was managed by the DSI and was successful in being awarded 'Leader in Process Mining Culture and Adoption' status.

This recognition for effort and activity will see Celonis partner with 15 Academic Centres of Excellence across the globe that will act as forerunners for providing Process Mining Education and Co-Innovation.

The award is another significant milestone for the DSI in its role as an institutional cornerstone and interdisciplinary nexus as contributions were drawn from across the LSE community to provide a compelling case that showed the School to have integrated Process Mining rigorously into the curriculum, published research in the field and spearheaded a diverse range of student and community-based initiatives.

More information is available here.

DSI Affiliate Professor Henry Wynn has published a new book titled 'Against Sacrifice - An Essay on Risk and Ethics'.

The new book draws on the community-based and experimental ideas of the American Pragmatist, John Dewey. Henry's central message is that it cannot be part of the “public good” to sacrifice someone for the public good.

As the institutional cornerstone of data science activity at the London School of Economics, staff from across the LSE community who are engaged with data science in their research or teaching can apply to become DSI Affiliates. These Affiliates participate in the activities of the institute and have special access to its resources.

Keep up to date with Henry on Twitter.

The Data Science Institute (DSI) is proud to work alongside the academic departments across LSE to foster the study of data science with a focus on social, economic, and political aspects.

As part of this mission the DSI highlights good examples of data science activity from across the LSE community, such as LSE Fellow in Computational Social Science Dr Siân Brooke.

Siân's activist research agenda combines cultural and computational methods to understand the ways in which to increase gender equity in computing.

Discover Siân's research agenda in the latest data science spotlight.

The LSE Data Science Institute is proud and excited to share the news that Dr Erica Thompson has been awarded a new UKRI Future Leaders Fellowship.

The Future Leaders Fellowship scheme is designed to develop the next wave of world-class research and innovation leaders in academia and business.

The Data Science Institute will form a partnership with UKRI as a host organisation, in what represents a significant moment for the Institute in its role as institutional cornerstone of data science activity at LSE.

Commenting on news of this award, incoming Pro-Director for Research Professor Susana Mourato said: “This new partnership highlights how LSE creates and sustains opportunities for world-leading social science research and shows how the Data Science Institute is core to LSE’s future research vision as part of the LSE 2030 strategy."

"Erica is an outstanding example of LSE’s innovative academic community. I am delighted that Erica’s research has received this recognition."

Find more information here.

DSI Affiliate Dr Eleanor Power has published a new article in the Journal of Evolutionary Human Sciences with Nichola Raihani.

This article is titled 'No good deed goes unpunished: the social costs of prosocial behaviour' and explores how individuals can improve their reputation through performing costly helpful behaviours.

The article finds that although investing in costly cooperative behaviour can yield benefits, these benefits do not always follow from prosocial actions. Indeed these actions can sometimes yield social costs.

In this review, published in open access, the authors explore when and why investments in prosocial behaviour are likely to yield social costs and propose two key features of interactions that make it more likely that generous individuals will incur social costs.

We are proud to highlight the activity of our DSI Affiliates. These members of the LSE community are engaged with data science in their research or teaching. Find out how to become a DSI Affiliate here.

Keep up to date with Eleanor on Twitter.

DSI Management Committee member Professor Patrick Sturgis has published a new working paper with Professor Franz Buscha and Dr Emma Gorman.

This working paper is titled 'Selective Schooling Has Not Promoted Social Mobility in England' and uses linked census data to assess whether an academically selective schooling system promotes social mobility, using England as a case study.

The authors explain that they use data from the Office for National Statistics Longitudinal Study (LS) due to its large sample size, low rates of non-response, and because it includes data on those living communally, such as older adults and students. These groups are commonly omitted from household surveys. The LS also includes data on those who were enumerated in the study member’s household for the Census. Therefore the authors do not need to rely on potentially erroneous recall data.

The working paper concludes that its findings confirm those of existing studies, that there is little to no evidence to support the contention that selective schools have a beneficial effect on social mobility.

Keep up to date with Patrick on Twitter.

The LSE Data Science Institute is proud to welcome new members of the DSI Affiliate Scheme. DSI Affiliates make up the core of the data science community at LSE and play a key role in developing the DSI agenda, by actively participating in our events and collaborations.

These individuals are staff from across LSE who are engaged with data science in their research or teaching. By participating in the DSI Affiliate Scheme, they access opportunities to meet researchers with a diverse range of backgrounds and to engage in collaborative, interdisciplinary research.

We are delighted to welcome the following as our new DSI Affiliates:

Dr Marcos Barreto
Assistant Professorial Lecturer - Department of Statistics

Professor Umut Cetin
Professor of Statistics - Department of Statistics

Dr Yunxiao Chen
Assistant Professor - Department of Statistics

Dr Florian Foos
Assistant Professor in Political Behaviour - Department of Government

Dr Kostas Kalogeropoulos
Assistant Professor - Department of Statistics

Dr Eleanor Power
Assistant Professor - Department of Methodology

Dr Xinghao Qiao
Assistant Professor - Department of Statistics

Dr Chengchun Shi
Assistant Professor - Department of Statisitcs

Dr Kate Vrendenburgh
Assistant Professor - Department of Philosophy, Logic and Scientific Method

More information can be found about each of our DSI Affiliates here. If you would like to enhance discovery and innovation within the field of data science by becoming one of our DSI Affiliates, please apply here.

Dr Erica Thompson has been interviewed as part of the latest edition of LSE Staff News.

Erica is a Senior Policy Fellow in Ethics of Modelling and Simulation and was interviewed as part of the '60 seconds with' series.

In a wide-ranging interview, Erica discusses the mission of the LSE Data Science Institute (DSI) and the opportunites provided to new DSI Affiliates. These LSE researchers form a core pillar of the data science community at LSE and Erica was keen to encourage other LSE researchers to join the DSI community.

Other topics covered in this interview include Erica's forthcoming book, her homemade raspberry ice cream and a new gardening hobby. Erica also offers a recommendation of Kim Stanley Robinson's Ministry for the Future, referring to the opening chapters as "required reading for economists who think that a couple of degrees increase in global mean temperature isn't a big deal."

When asked what makes her feel part of LSE, Erica commented that Twitter has been a good way to stay connected with colleagues whilst working remotely. Follow Erica on Twitter here. Read the full interview here.

The LSE Data Science Institute works closely with LSE Data and Technology Services and LSE Digital Skills Lab to advance computing infrastructure and services for data science research and teaching.

A recently completed Change Makers project explores the skills and competencies that employers seek when hiring graduates in order to help current LSE students enhance their employability.

Change Makers is a programme that gives current students the chance to make meaningful change at LSE through independent research. At the end of the project, Change Makers communicate their findings and recommendations to senior leadership across LSE and LSESU to take forward.

The findings of this specific project will directly provide insight and value to the LSE Digital Skills Lab and LSE Careers services. The researchers (Anshuman Bhatnagar, Zane Wong, and Dominic Al-Hariri) intend for their findings to in turn better prepare and advise LSE students on digital skills.

This project was presented at the LSE Change Makers 2020/21 Online Event. An executive summary of this project can be found here. Read the full report here.

Information on other Change Makers projects can be found via the Research Gallery.

As part of the DSI's mission to champion data science, we will periodically shine our data science spotlight on good examples of this from across the LSE community.

Weiguan Wang, a recent PhD graduate from the Department of Mathematics, is one such example.

Weiguan has research interests including Machine Learning with applications to Quantitative Finance and his PhD thesis was titled 'Statistical Hedging with Neural Networks'. This thesis was supervised by Dr Arne Lokka and DSI Affiliate Professor Johannes Ruf.

Johannes has also collaborated on research with Weiguan and when asked about him explained that "what I am personally most impressed with about Weiguan is his strong scholarly attitude. He is always trying to understand what is going on and is very honest about his results."

More information about some of these collaborations can be found in the latest data science spotlight.

If you know of a member of the LSE community that deserves our recognition, please let us know.

The LSE Data Science Institute is proud to foster the study of data science and new forms of data and to highlight the LSE Online Courses that make our world-leading teaching and research in this area accessible to a global audience through a comprehensive portfolio of online programmes.

As businesses, governments and academic institutions increasingly rely on data-driven decision-making, one of their main challenges is addressing the significant skills gap that exists in the field of data science.

These LSE Online Courses will equip you and your organisation with the knowledge and skills to advance in an ever-changing world.

Online Certificate Courses take place over six to ten weeks and provide the ultimate flexibility for professionals.

Online Masterclasses offer an immersive learning experience of specialised subjects and take place over three weeks.

Online Undergraduate Degrees open the door to world-class, transformative education for learners globally. Earn a University of London qualification with academic direction by LSE from anywhere in the world.

The full range of online study opportunities in data and digital transformation can be found here. More information on studying data science at LSE is available here.

Is there subtle segregation and a casual "everyday racism" present just on a simple walk in the neighborhood? This is the subject of the latest CIVICA Data Science seminar recording, which is now available on YouTube.

Dr Melissa Sands led this fascinating discussion on 'Using public video cameras to detect racial distancing on city streets' that explored whether people consciously or unconsciously avoid others of certain races on city streets.

Using publicly-available traffic camera feeds in combination with a real-world field experiment, Dr Melissa Sands and her colleague Dr Bryce Dietrich have been able to examine how pedestrians of different races behave in the presence of other racial groups and discovered an implicit bias against certain people of colour in public social interaction.

This event originally took place on 5 May 2021 and you can watch the recording here.

The LSE Data Science Institute is proud to welcome the first DSI Visiting Appointments.

The Visiting Appointments scheme allows staff from other institutions to benefit from the level of involvement similar to that enjoyed by DSI Affiliates.

These Visiting Appointments represent the newest part of our growing data science community. They will participate in the activities of the DSI and have special access to its resources.

The Visiting Appointments scheme represents a central pillar of the DSI's role in promoting the social focus of data science and computational methods among social scientists, within LSE and beyond.

We are delighted to welcome the following as our first Visiting Appointments:

Professor Arthur Petersen
Visiting Professor

Arthur is a Professor of Science, Technology and Public Policy at UCL and has significant experience of work as a scientific adviser on environment and infrastructure policy.

John Burn-Murdoch
Visiting Senior Fellow

John is a Senior Data Visualisation Journalist at the Financial Times and key architect behind the FT's massively popular COVID-19 data visualisation tool.

Dr Trevor Maynard
Visiting Senior Fellow

Trevor is Head of Innovation at Lloyd's of London and was previously a Senior Visiting Fellow at the LSE Centre for the Analysis of Time Series (CATS).

Dr Hailiang Du
Visiting Fellow

Hailiang is an Assistant Professor in Statistics at the University of Durham's Department of Mathematical Sciences. Research interests include uncertainty quantification, forecast evaluation, and data assimilation.

DSI Affiliate Dr Milena Tsvetkova will take part in the upcoming workshop on Experimental Sociology, hosted by the LSE Department of Sociology.

This workshop will provide a platform for researchers to discuss their new experimental research in sociology and Milena is a member of the Program Committee and will appear as a discussant in Session Three of the workshop, exploring the question 'Can Crowd-based User Ratings against Misinformation Backfire?'.

Other participants in Session Three of the workshop will include Jonas Stein (University of Groningen), Vincenz Frey (University of Groningen) and Arnout van de Rijt (EUI).

The Experimental Sociology workshop will take place on the afternoons of 24 June and 25 June 2021. Find the full programme here and register to attend here.

The LSE Data Science Institute was proud to host the inaugural CIVICA Data Science seminar series and the latest recording from this series is now available on YouTube.

Dr Preslav Nakov led this discussion on 'How to detect fake news before it is written' that explored the Tanbih news aggregator and COVID-19 disinformation detector platforms.

Preslav and his colleagues at the Qatar Computing Research Insitute have developed these tools in an aim to limit the impact of fake news, propaganda and media bias by making users aware of what they are reading.

This event originally took place on 21 April 2021 and you can watch the recording here.

The LSE Data Science Institute is proud to be a partner institution within the CIVICA network. Tickets are now available for an upcoming series of workshops that have been organised by another of the CIVICA network partners, the Hertie School Data Science Lab.

These workshops will form the Data Science Summer School. Participants in the summer school will explore exciting methods and technologies currently employed by industry, government, and civil society to address the world's most complex problems.

As well as workshops covering theory and application, those that attend the summer school will receive specialist instruction from both academic and industry experts. There will also be significant networking opportunities and participants will be provided with a certificate of attendance.

Courses will include a range of topics, such as Survey Methods, Data Visualisation, Web Scraping, Social Network Analysis, Machine Learning, and Spatial Data Analysis.

Attendance at the Data Science Summer School is fully sponsored. Register here.

As part of the CIVICA network, the LSE Data Science Institute hosts the interdisciplinary CIVICA Data Science Seminar Series. This series has become the focus of a new article.

This article is authored by Ellen Thalman (Hertie School) and explores how these seminars "draw researchers and interest from across the CIVICA network and beyond".

The article covers the broad range of subjects that these seminars covered, all with a focus on how data science impacts areas of current public debate. Seminar recordings are now available on YouTube.

One of the speakers in the series was Visiting Senior Fellow John Burn-Murdoch. John is the key architect behind the massively popular COVID-19 data visualisation tool by the Financial Times and shared his and the FT team’s experience in data collection and presentation to the general public:

“What defines the best data scientist? Well, it’s the person who has the best methods or the best models,”

“But I would say it’s also about the person who is the most effective communicator of their work. …Active communication and how you get your results – your findings – across to people in an accessible way that they actually understand is really, really critical.”

The article also quotes Senior Policy Fellow Dr Erica Thompson on the aims of the seminar series:

“The aim was to look at a broad range of topics in social data science, aiming to be quite accessible for different people across the member universities and for a public audience - but looking at quite high-profile, cutting-edge research in data science with social applications.”

The CIVICA Data Science Seminar Series will return in academic year 2021/22.

The fast growing LSE Data Science Institute is pleased to welcome Jinshuai Ma to the LSE data science community.

Jinshuai will become a new Research Officer in Quantitative Text Analysis, making use of key expertise in the design, analysis and development of software.

Jinshuai's research interests include text analysis, natural language processing, human-centred software design and physiological signal analysis.

Since graduation, Jinshuai has been working on the design and implementation of a software solution for text analysis based on the Quanteda package, which aims to make it more user-friendly and intuitive for text analysis tasks.

The LSE Data Science Institute (DSI) works closely with the LSE community to equip LSE students for the data science job market.

Among the LSE Careers team that the DSI collaborates with is Careers Consultant Edith Karinthi-Durnez. Edith recently published a blog that provides ideas on how to develop a career in data.

The title of this blog is Resources to prepare for a career in Data and Tech and resources provided include job boards, specialist websites, and online courses.

An increasing number of LSE students intend to enter the technology and data sector and this blog is an invaluable gateway to the guidance that LSE Careers can offer. In addition to vacancies and training opportunities, Edith offers advice on how to find networking events that engage with the tech community. This is a common area of concern.

LSE students can find additional support such as recordings of presentations and panel events relating to the data and tech sector by visiting CareerHub.

The latest recording is now available from the CIVICA Data Science seminar series. The discussion on 'Negotiating with AI Fairness in the Labour Market' led by Dr Christo Wilson is now available on YouTube.

On 7 April 2021 the interdisciplinary CIVICA Data Science Seminar Series invited Christo (Associate Professor, Khoury College of Computer Sciences, Northeastern University) to introduce the methods and findings of his research into pymetrics.

Christo worked with a talent matching platform start-up that promises to help enterprise companies build diverse teams of top performers, entirely bias-free by leveraging behavioral science and audited AI technology.

As explained in the seminar, Christo has conducted audits of such algorithms and services, digging into their source code to determine whether they truly contain safeguards to prevent human errors and maintaining fairness.

Watch the recording of this event here.

The LSE Data Science Institute is proud to welcome new DSI Affiliates. The DSI unites researchers from across the LSE's range of social science disciplines through data science and these DSI Affiliates represent the newest part of our growing data science community.

DSI Affiliates are staff from across LSE who are engaged with data science in their research or teaching. Affiliates participate in the activities of the institute and have special access to its resources.

The DSI Affiliate Scheme represents a central pillar of the DSI's role of forming the institutional cornerstone of data science activity at the London School of Economics.

We are delighted to welcome the following as our first DSI Affiliates:

Dr Tuğkan Batu
Assistant Professor - Department of Mathematics

Dr Michael Blackwell
Associate Professor of Law - Department of Law

Professor Piotr Fryzlewicz
Professor of Statistics - Department of Statistics

Dr Blake Miller
Assistant Professor - Department of Methodology

Professor Johannes Ruf
Professor - Department of Mathematics

Professor László Végh
Professor - Department of Mathematics

Professor Henry Wynn
Emeritus Professor of Statistics - Department of Statistics

More information can be found about each of our DSI Affiliates here and in this Twitter thread. Applications to become one of these DSI Affiliates are welcomed. Please apply here.

The Data Science Institute (DSI) is proud to form the institutional cornerstone of data science activity at the London School of Economics.

As part of the DSI's mission to champion data science, we will periodically shine our data science spotlight on good examples from across the LSE community.

The first individual that we will focus on is MSc Applied Social Data Science student Ramshankar Yadhunath.

Ramshankar became part of LSE in September 2020 and is deeply passionate about data-driven decision making and the use of data for good. This belief is shown in Ramshankar's articles published by Towards Data Science.

'Leveraging Data for Social Good'.

This article explains how Ramshankar led a small team in using empirical data to benefit a rural village in Northern Punjab, India. The team explored the question of whether people from Dodeneer were suffering from acute water shortage, using Python to analyse the data. After cleaning this data and comparison with UN standards, Ramshankar's team found basic individual water requirements not met in almost twice the number of those households where these requirements were met.

'Saving Animal Lives with Data'.

The use of data in animal shelters may not be the most obvious use that comes to mind. However, in this article Ramshankar uses his experience of working at People for Animals in Bangalore to outline how data could be used to improve the efficiency of operations at these shelters. The article details the potential for data-driven practices to raise the standard of care provided to these animals. A follow up article describing his attempts at improving the quality of data at the shelter has also been published.

Ramshankar was the Co-Head of Education at the LSESU Data Science Society during 2020-21 and can be contacted via LinkedIn and Twitter.

We are delighted that a recording of the CIVICA Data Science Seminar with Roman Rivera is now available on YouTube.

On 17 March 2021 the interdisciplinary CIVICA Data Science Seminar Series invited Roman to lead a discussion on the research methods and findings of a study into whether police diversity deters the use of force by law enforcement.

This study follows recent high-profile police shootings, calls for police reform and proposals to diversify law enforcement departments that historically have been dominated by white officers.

The question of whether changing the demography of officers in the field can actually bring about positive change in the interaction between police and civilians is one not often tackled by researchers. This is what Bocar Ba, Dean Knox, Jonathan Mummolo, and Roman Rivera sought to answer in their study published in the Science Magazine. By investigating millions of daily patrol records, the team was able to compare the average behaviour of officers of different demographic profiles working in similar conditions.

Watch the recording of this event here.

The next CIVICA Data Science Seminar takes place on 2 June 2021. Find more information and sign up here.

Senior Policy Fellow in Ethics of Modelling and Simulation Dr Erica Thompson was invited to present at an inter-disciplinary panel on 'Systemic Resilience: What is it, and how can it be enhanced?' hosted by Rebuilding Macroeconomics and a recording of this event is now available on YouTube.

Through the use of three examples, Erica's presentation explores the effectiveness of mathematical models in informing real world decisions.

The first of these examples is humanitarian decision making, discussed in the context of the recent shift away from reactive action to proactive anticipation. Erica's second example of COVID-19 highlights both the strengths and weaknesses of predicting via mathematical models. Finally, Erica explores the relevance of climate change modelling to local decision making on how to adapt to the impact of climate change.

Erica concludes her presentation with an explanation that although models can only ever represent a limited picture due to them being contingent on biases and prejudices, the flexibility of models means that a positive shared vision of the future can be realised.

On 24 March 2021 we were proud to welcome John Burn-Murdoch to lead a discussion as part of the CIVICA Data Science Seminar Series and the recording of this event is now available.

John is the key architect behind the popular COVID-19 data visualisation tool by the Financial Times and led an engaging seminar in which he shared the FT team’s experience in data collection and presentation to the general public, the importance of good and evolving data visualisation in informing public discourse, and how he captured the attention of millions on the seriousness of the pandemic.

The CIVICA Data Science Seminar Series is a multi-disciplinary series focused on applications and methodologies of data science for the social, political, and economic world. Its aim is to allow researchers to share original, new work or work in progress in order to get methodological or technical comments and suggestions.

The next CIVICA Data Science Seminar takes place on 19 May 2021 and is led by Professor Chris Bail of Duke University. Find more information and sign up here.

Senior Policy Fellow in Ethics of Modelling and Simulation Dr Erica Thompson has been invited to join a inter-disciplinary panel.

This panel will be hosted by Rebuilding Macroeconomics and is titled 'Systemic Resilience: What is it, and how can it be enhanced?'. The event will discuss how to build and manage more resilient systems in the wake of COVID-19, which has illustrated the interconnectedness of social and economic systems.

The event will explore the core question of how the recovery can be supported, while at the same time safeguarding social and economic systems against the future stresses that will inevitably occur?

This event will take place online on 11 May 2021 (15:00 - 16:30). Please register via email request.

At a very exciting time to join the Data Science Institute, we are pleased to be hiring a new Business Development Officer.

The closing date for receipt of applications is 2nd June 2021.

For more information please visit the LSE jobs page. If you have any queries please contact dsi.admin@lse.ac.uk.

DSI Director Professor Ken Benoit has appeared on the latest LSEIQ Podcast.

Ken was invited to contribute to a discussion on 'Do algorithms have too much power?' alongside Jo Bale, Andrew Murray, Alison Powell and Bernhard von Stengel.

The podcast focuses on computer algorithms. Increasingly these shape our lives and control our future, but how much power should we give to them and have we let things go too far?

DSI Director Professor Ken Benoit was invited to join an event hosted by The White Rose Social Sciences Doctoral Training Partnership.

This collaborative online event was titled 'Bridging the gap' and explored the potential applications of quantitative text analysis in political science.

We are excited to be hiring two new Assistant Professorial Lecturer in Data Science.

The closing date for receipt of applications is 16 May 2021.

For more information please visit the LSE jobs page. If you have any queries please contact dsi.admin@lse.ac.uk.

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