We hope everyone's end of the semester is going smooth! Please be sure to read about our summer closure plan.
- D-Lab Summer Closure -
With the end of the semester rapidly approaching, we want to let you know
about the plan for D-Lab summer closures.
As of Friday, May 7 @ 5:00 pm, D-Lab will be closed to the public (virtual space, front desk, workshops, new consulting requests, and consulting drop-ins). If you have an open consulting request, we will finish up your existing request from May 7 to May 14 via email or schedule individual Zoom sessions.
We plan to re-open our doors and begin providing services when fall semester begins in August 2021. Our re-opening date is still to be determined, but we will let you all know our plan as we get closer to early August. Our newsletter updates over the summer will change from our regular weekly updates instead to occasional updates as we have information to share.
We hope everyone has a great rest of the semester! If you have questions, please email: dlab-frontdesk@berkeley.edu
- Featured Events -
Public Meetings and Public Policy
April 28 | 12:00 PM to 1:00 PM | Register for Talk
Speaker: Alexander Sahn
"Public meetings allow constituents to comment on matters before local governments, providing signals of public opinion in an otherwise low-information environment. Recent advances in the availability of administrative data have shown inequalities in who participates by race, age, and homeownership status...Does the demographically unrepresentative slice of opinion presented at these meetings lead policy to be out of step with mass opinion?"
To read more about Alexander's research and attend his talk click here!
UC Berkeley Cloud Meetup 023: Internet2
April 29 | 1:00 PM to 2:00 PM | Register here
Internet2 is a non-profit community organization providing a secure high-speed network, cloud solutions, research support, and services tailored for research and education. Although Internet2, often referred to as “I2”, is a small organization, it has areas of deep expertise in networking, identity, security, research support, and cloud technologies. Representatives from across I2 will walk you through the solutions the organization has been building to power your digital success for 25 years.
Everyone is welcome - this is a really inclusive group! You don't have to be an expert, or already know about cloud technologies; we get together so people can learn from each other.
Computational Text Analysis:
The Cost of Conflict in Bankruptcy Reorganizations
April 30 | 1:00 PM to 2:00 PM | Register Link
Speaker: Kenneth Ayotte
Chapter 11 bankruptcy reorganizations are complex and involve negotiations between classes of claims about how a company’s value is to be divided among these claims. Sometimes these negotiations can be resolved quickly and cheaply, while other cases are long, contentious affairs. We would like to use text analysis to understand the causes and consequences of conflict in bankruptcy cases.
Also, take a moment to check out the next series of upcoming CTAWG meetings...
Securing Research Data Working Group
May 24 | 2:00 PM to 3:00 PM | Register Link
Speaker: Alison Henry and Julie Goldstein
Alison Henry, Chief Information Security Officer, and Julie Goldstein, Information Security Policy Manager, on the new Roles and Responsibilities policy for data security.
The goal of this working group is to understand issues around sensitive/restricted use research data from a variety of views - especially from the perspective of Berkeley researchers who need and use such data and the staff and units who support that. We will also seek to develop concrete solutions and products - whether it is environments, model security plans or data use agreements, or compendia of local data or resources. A third goal of this group is to provide input to IT and other organizations working on developing a set of suggested solutions to provide to campus leadership.
- Job Opportunities at D-Lab -
Call for D-Lab Data Science Fellows
D-Lab Data Science Fellows recruitment is coming soon! Please stay tuned for more information. You can learn more about our Fellows program here.
D-Lab is hiring a Department Manager
We are hiring a department manager who will be expected to assist the executive director in all aspects of program planning, function as a resource for all D-Lab staff, and more. Applicants should have strong communication and organization skills and a good awareness of data science fields.
For a complete list of application requirements and job expectations, please view here.
The D-Lab's R Fundamentals workshop is a four-part introductory series that will teach you R from scratch with clear introductions, concise examples, and support documents. You will learn how to download and install the open-sourced R Studio software, import, export, manipulate, and visualize data, and learn to write shorthand functions of your code. After completion of this workshop you will have a foundational understanding to create, organize, and utilize workflows for your personal research.
Stata Fundamentals: Parts 1-3
May 3, 4, 5 | 12:00 PM to 3:00 PM | Register for Zoom Link
Part 1: Getting a dataset into Stata (no previous knowledge expected), examining a dataset and finding variables of interest, summarizing and tabulating variables, and more!
Part 2: Data Analysis in Stata, correlation, T-tests, OLS and logistic regression (basic syntax, using interaction terms, interpreting output), and more!
Part 3: Stata Programming, local and global variables (macros), looping (foreach, forvalues), reshaping data between wide and long formats, and more!
Geospatial data are an important component of data visualization and analysis in the social sciences, humanities, and elsewhere. The R programming language is a great platform for exploring these data and integrating them into your research. Part one of this multi-part workshop series will introduce basic methods and packages for working with geospatial data in R. Part two will dive deeper into data driven mapping in R, using color palettes and data classification to communicate information with maps. Part three will introduce tools and approaches for working with raster data.
Python Fundamentals: Parts 1-4
May 3, 4, 5, 6 | 1:00 PM to 4:00 PM | Register for Zoom Link
This four-part, interactive workshop series is your complete introduction to programming Python for people with little or no previous programming experience. By the end of the series, you will be able to apply your knowledge of basic principles of programming and data manipulation to a real-world social science application.
Geospatial data are an important component of social science and humanities data visualization and analysis. This workshop will introduce basic methods for working with geospatial data in Python using GeoPandas, a relatively new Python library for working with geospatial data that has matured and stabilized in the last few years. In the workshop we will import geospatial data stored in shapefiles and CSV files into geopandas objects. We will explore methods for subsetting and spatial reshaping these objects. We will use geopandas methods for defining and transforming coordinate reference systems. Participants will also join tabular data to geospatial data and create maps based on the data values.
Qualtrics is a powerful online tool available to Berkeley community members that can be used for a range of data collection activities. Primarily, Qualtrics is designed to make web surveys easy to write, test, and implement, but the software can be used for data entry, training, quality control, evaluation, market research, pre/post-event feedback, and other uses with some creativity. This overview will introduce a simple workflow using the system with an orientation to the main interfaces for web survey design, sample management, corresponding with sample members, and exporting data at the end of the field period. Examples from completed surveys in public health, economics, program evaluation, and other disciplines will be incorporated in the overview.
An introduction to programming basics in Bash and GitHub that are often assumed, but that you might have never had good instruction on! The first half of this workshop will introduce you navigating your computer’s filesystem and basic Bash commands to remove the fear of working with the command line to give you the confidence to use it to increase your productivity. The second half of this workshop will introduce you to Git, a powerful tool for keeping track of changes you make to the files in a project. You can use it to synchronize your work across computers, collaborate with others, and even deploy applications to the cloud. In this workshop, you will learn the basics to understand and use Git, including working with the popular "social coding" website, GitHub.
To see a calendar view of our upcoming April and May 2021 Workshops, click here!
- Consulting Drop-in Hours -
We are continuing to offer drop-in
consulting Monday-Friday from 10am-5pm through Friday, May 7.
Stop by our virtual front desk
to speak with a consultant.
Are you interested in developing transferable competencies that are attractive to employers and academic programs? In our digital humanities program, the UC Berkeley Cultural Analytics Learning Institute for Digital Humanities (CALI-DH), you will explore questions about art and culture using digital tools. By pairing computational methods and domain specialization you can better understand complex phenomena and cultures and how computational analysis influences what you see. CALI-DH Online will guide you through the entire process of identifying relevant cultural artifacts and archives, curating your own subset of data, conducting advanced research, and communicating your findings.
To learn more about the courses offered this summer please visit here!
- Upcoming Events -
ACM Conference on Equity and Access in Algorithms, Mechanisms, and Optimization October 5-9 | More Info
The inaugural ACM conference on Equity and Access in Algorithms, Mechanisms and Optimization (EAAMO ’21) aims to highlight work where techniques from algorithms, optimization, and mechanism design, along with insights from other disciplines, can help improve equity and access to opportunity for historically disadvantaged and underserved communities.
EAAMO ’21 will feature keynote presentations and panels and contributed presentations on research papers, surveys, problem pitches, datasets, and software demonstrations.
In line with the MD4SG core values of bridging research and practice, the conference aims to provide an international forum for researchers as well as policy-makers and practitioners in various government and non-government organizations, community organizations, and industry to build interdisciplinary, multi-stakeholder research pipelines.
Submission deadline is June 3, 2021, more information on how to submit here.
- Jobs & External Opportunities -
GIS Web Programmer
The Informatics and GIS Program in the UC Division of Agriculture and Natural Resources is recruiting a GIS web developer. This is a great opportunity for someone with a background in open source GIS and web development, who enjoys building information tools to support natural resource management and agriculture. This new position will be based at Davis or Berkeley, with the possibility of working remotely.
The application deadline is May 2. For more info and to apply, see the announcement!
College of Letters & Science Graduate Mentor
The College of Letters and Sciences is seeking two graduate students from the areas of Arts & Humanities, Biological Science, Interdisciplinary Studies, Mathematics & Physical Science, Social Sciences, and/or students with liberal arts backgrounds currently studying in professional school programs to mentor L&S undergraduates. Mentors will assist the L&S advising team in the expansion of advising tools and programs aimed at supporting undergraduates’ exploration of a broad-based liberal arts education.
The application deadline is May 4. Click here to learn more and email mdepalma@berkeley.edu to apply!
C-GEM Summer Research Program
The NSF Center for Genetically Encoded Materials (C-GEM) is searching for a developer to build a web-based database to support a diverse set of ribosome engineering efforts. This database will serve as a critical resource for C-GEM and the broader chemical, synthetic, and engineering biology communities. We are looking for a motivated developer who can create the architecture of this database and generate instructions on how to input raw data by May 7th. We envision two UIs: one for data entry and one for searching/data display. We would like to have a beta version of the database available for internal use by May 24th. We will support an additional round of development in July or August (once the database is populated) to make modifications suggested by the C-GEM community prior to public release. We look forward to collaborating with a software expert to make our vision a reality!
The Risk Resilience Research lab at the University of California, Berkeley is recruiting a Graduate Student Researcher to be appointed at 50% time. The expected start date is May 15, 2021, and the recruitment will be open until filled. The level of appointment will be commensurate with the applicant’s experience.
Assistant Professor, Halıcıoğlu Data Science Institute
UC San Diego invites applications from outstanding candidates for an open-rank (tenure-track or tenured) faculty position for a primary appointment at the Halicioglu Data Science Institute (HDSI) with an optional joint appointment in another academic department. HDSI welcomes outstanding candidates who advance research at the intersection of Data Science and Health Sciences/ Humanities/Social Sciences. A successful candidate should use and/or develop Data Science methods to study important societal questions related to Black communities anywhere in the US, Africa, or the Black Diaspora.
Support D-Lab
Join our community of donors by making a gift to D-Lab. Contributions of any size will support free, inclusive workshops and resources for the UC Berkeley community. Give today!
