Please join us on August 26 from 10am-11am for “Democratizing Our Data,” a lecture by Julia Lane, Professor at the NYU Wagner Graduate School of Public Service, at the NYU Center for Urban Science and Progress, and a NYU Provostial Fellow for Innovation Analytics.Co-sponsored by Social Science Matrix and the UC Berkeley D-Lab, this event will be presented in-person on the UC Berkeley campus, and will also be streamed via Zoom. Professor Lane will be introduced by Natasha Nicolai, Chief Data Strategist with the California Department of Social Services, and alumna of the Goldman School of Public Policy.
*please note: we may adjust this event based on the current Covid-19 regulations (masking, virtual only, etc.)
Abstract: There is enormous interest in building a better understanding of how evidence and data can inform policy. New possibilities have opened up to enable data to be shared and used across states and agencies. One is a technical approach – the Administrative Data Research Facility – which provides a secure environment within which education, training, and workforce data can be shared across agencies and states. The other is human – the Applied Data Analytics training program – which trains government agency staff how to combine and use the data to serve their agency missions. Over 650 participants from over 150 agencies have participated and produced new products and new networks in the process.
This presentation discusses the approach sponsored by the California Department of Social Services, joint with the Department of Education and the Economic Development Department. The D-Lab worked with the Coleridge Initiative to successfully combine the two approaches. The presentation will also address the broader vision of how approaches like this can serve to democratize data for the United States.
About the speaker: Julia Lane is a Professor at the NYU Wagner Graduate School of Public Service, at the NYU Center for Urban Science and Progress, and a NYU Provostial Fellow for Innovation Analytics. She cofounded the Coleridge Initiative, whose goal is to use data to transform the way governments access and use data for the social good through training programs, research projects and a secure data facility. The approach is attracting national attention, including the Commission on Evidence Based Policy and the Federal Data Strategy.
Previous to this, Julia was a Senior Managing Economist and Institute Fellow at American Institutes for Research. In this role, Julia co-founded the Institute for Research on Innovation and Science (IRIS) at the University of Michigan. Julia has held positions at the National Science Foundation, The Urban Institute, The World Bank, American University, and NORC at the University at Chicago.
In these positions, Julia has led many initiatives, including the STAR METRICS programs at the National Science Foundation. She also initiated and led the creation and permanent establishment of the Longitudinal Employer-Household Dynamics Program at the U.S. Census Bureau. This program began as a small two year ASA Census Bureau fellowship and evolved into the first large-scale linked employer-employee dataset in the United States. It is now a permanent Census Bureau program, with appropriated funds of $11 million per year.
Julia has published over 80 articles in leading economics journals, and authored or edited ten books. She is an elected fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the International Statistical Institute, and a fellow of the American Statistical Association. She has been the recipient of over $70 million in grants; from foundations such as the National Science Foundation, the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, the MacArthur Foundation, the Russell Sage Foundation, the Spencer Foundation, the National Institutes of Health, the Overdeck Family Foundation, the Schmidt Futures Foundation, and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation; from government agencies, such as the Departments of Commerce, Labor, and Health and Human Services in the U.S., the ESRC in the U.K., and the Department of Labour and Statistics New Zealand in New Zealand, as well as from international organizations such as the World Bank. Julia is the recipient of the 2014 Julius Shiskin award and the 2014 Roger Herriot award. She is also the recipient of the 2017 Warren E. Miller Award.
Julia received her PhD in Economics and Master’s in Statistics from the University of Missouri.