Data Science

Command Line Fundamentals

December 10, 2024, 10:00am
In this workshop, we provide a basic introduction to how to interact with your computer via terminal. We are going to focus on Bash (Bourne-Again Shell) or Zsh (Z Shell), which are one of the most commonly used Unix/Linux shells.

LLMs for Exploratory Research

December 10, 2024, 1:00pm
In a fast evolving artificial intelligence landscape, LLMs such as GPT have become a common buzzword. In the research community, their advantages and pitfalls are hotly debated. In this workshop, we will explore different chatbots powered by LLMs, beyond just ChatGPT. Our main goal will be to understand how LLMs can be used by researchers to conduct early-stage (or exploratory) research. Throughout the workshop, we will discuss best practices for prompt engineering and heuristics to evaluate the suitability of an LLM's output for our research purposes. Though the workshop primarily focuses on early-stage research, we will briefly discuss the use cases of LLMs in later stages of research, such as data analysis and writing.

Python Fundamentals: Parts 1-3

December 9, 2024, 2:00pm
This three-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.

Exploring Rental Affordability in the San Francisco Bay Area Neighborhoods with R

November 5, 2024
Taesoo Song
by Taesoo Song. Many American cities continue to face severe rental burdens. However, we rarely examine rental affordability through the lens of quantitative data. In this blog post, I demonstrate how to download and visualize rental affordability data for the San Francisco Bay Area using R packages like `tidycensus` and `sf`. This exercise shows that mapping census data can be a straightforward and powerful way to understand the spatial patterns of housing dynamics and can offer valuable insights for research, policy, and advocacy.

R Fundamentals: Parts 1-4

December 9, 2024, 9:00am
This 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, understand data and basic manipulations, import and subset data, explore and visualize data, and understand the basics of automation in the form of loops and functions. After completion of this workshop you will have a foundational understanding to create, organize, and utilize workflows for your personal research.

Human-Centered Design for Migrant Rights

October 29, 2024
Victoria Hollingshead
by Victoria Hollingshead. In honor of the 2024 International Day of Care and Support, Victoria Hollingshead shares her recent work with the Center for Migrant Advocacy’s Direct Assistance Program and their innovative approach to supporting Overseas Filipino Workers (OFWs) using generative AI. OFWs, especially female domestic workers in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), are vulnerable to exploitation from foreign employers and recruitment agencies while having limited access to legal support. Using a design thinking framework, Victoria and CMA’s Direct Assistance team co-designed a proof of concept to enhance the legal and contract literacy among OFWs in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, a top destination country. This project shows promise in leveraging emerging technologies to empower OFWs, enhancing the Philippines' reputation as a migrant champion and supporting the nation's broader push for digital transformation.

R Copilot Assisted Coding Workshop

November 19, 2024, 10:00am
This workshop provides a beginner-friendly introduction to coding with GitHub Copilot, a popular AI coding assistant. We will start from the basics so you can take advantage of AI assistants to improve your coding and avoid common pitfalls. First, we’ll cover how to install and set-up Visual Studio Code, a free code editor through which we will use GitHub Copilot. Then, we will go through the different features of GitHub Copilot and how to use them to help us code in R.

Concepts and Measurements in Social Network Analysis

October 22, 2024
Christian Caballero
by Christian Caballero. We live in an interconnected world, more so now than ever. Social Network Analysis (SNA) provides a toolkit to study the influence of this interconnectivity. This blog post introduces some key theoretical concepts behind SNA, as well as a family of metrics for measuring influence in a network, known as centrality. These concepts and measurements help form the basis for a theoretically informed study of social relationships in an era where the availability of relational data has dramatically increased thanks to technological advances.

Python Fundamentals: Parts 4-6

November 4, 2024, 8:00am
This three-part interactive workshop series teaches you intermediate programming Python for people with previous programming experience equivalent to our Python Fundamentals workshop. 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.

Python Machine Learning Fundamentals: Parts 1-2

November 19, 2024, 1:00pm
This workshop introduces students to scikit-learn, the popular machine learning library in Python, as well as the auto-ML library built on top of scikit-learn, TPOT. The focus will be on scikit-learn syntax and available tools to apply machine learning algorithms to datasets. No theory instruction will be provided.