Means Tests

Alex Stephenson

Senior Data Science Fellow
Political Science

I am a Ph.D. Student in the Travers Department of Political Science. My primary research interests are military organizations, policing, the determinants of political violence, and causal inference. I am also interested in creating tools to make software easier to use for non-technical political scientists.

Enrique Valencia López

Data Science Fellow
Graduate School of Education

Enrique Valencia López is a PhD student in the Policy, Politics and Leadership cluster at the Graduate School of Education.His research interests relate to three broad areas: the stratification of education by gender, immigration status and ethnicity; the measurement of teacher working conditions and well-being; and education in Latin America.

Before coming to Berkeley, Enrique worked for Mexico’s National Institute for Educational Evaluation and Assessment (INEE) in both the Policy and Indicators area. During that time, he co-authored Mexico’s first report on the educational...

Deibi Sibrian

Data Science for Social Justice Fellow 2024
Deibi is a Ph.D. student in the Department of Environmental Science, Policy, and Management, centering critical interdisciplinary ecology and multispecies justice. Deibi coined the term "Cryptonocene," an interdisciplinary framework, to study the socio-environmental health impacts of cryptocurrencies and related technologies, such as AI. With over two years of experience as a graduate instructor, Deibi now is a Graduate Student Researcher, NSF Digital Transformation Fellow, and Mentored Research Fellow. Before joining Berkeley, Deibi was the project manager for an interdisciplinary team...

Gesean Lewis

Data Science for Social Justice Fellow 2024
Education

Fifth year doctoral candidate in the Joint Special Education Program. Decade long resume in autism research and socialization. Currently working on my dissertation following the educational journeys of former foster youth on the autism spectrum.

Sahiba Chopra

Data Science Fellow 2024-2025
Haas

I'm a PhD student in the Management and Organizations (Macro) group at Berkeley Haas. I have a diverse professional background, primarily as a data scientist across numerous industries, including fintech, cleantech, and media. I hold a BA in Economics from the University of Maryland, an MS in Applied Economics from the University of San Francisco, and an MS in Business Administration from UC Berkeley.

My research focuses on the intersection of inequality, technology, and the labor market. I am particularly interested in understanding how to reduce inequality in...

Violet Davis

Data Science for Social Justice Senior Fellow 2024
MIDS

I am a Masters student studying Data Science with the School of Information. My research involves computational social science projects focused on social justice and equity.

Skyler Yumeng Chen

Data Science for Social Justice Fellow 2024
Haas School of Business

Skyler is a Ph.D. student in Behavioral Marketing at the Haas School of Business. Her research centers on consumer behavior and judgment and decision-making, with a keen interest in both experimental methods and data science techniques. She holds a B.A. in Economics and a B.S. in Data Science from New York University Shanghai.

Grace Hu

Data Science for Social Justice Fellow 2024
Bioengineering

Grace is a 3rd year Bioengineering PhD candidate in the joint UC Berkeley-UCSF Graduate Program. Her research lies at the nexus of computational design and 3D-bioprinting to advance tissue engineering for regenerative medicine. She previously studied Materials Science and Engineering (B.S.) and Computer Science (M.S.) at Stanford University, where she investigated printable batteries to power an ultra-affordable scanning electron microscope and explored computer science education research by developing AI models to augment teaching ability.

In her free time she...

Design Your Observational Study with the Joint Variable Importance Plot

March 12, 2024
by Lauren Liao. When evaluating causal inference in observational studies, there often is a natural imbalance in the data. Luckily, variables are often measured alongside that can be helpful for adjustment. However, deciding which variables should be prioritized for adjustment is not trivial – since not all variables are equally important to the intervention or the outcome. I recommend using the joint variable importance plot during the observational study design phase to visualize which variables should be prioritized. This post provides a gentle guide on how to do so and why it is important.

Creating the Ultimate Sweet

January 30, 2024
by Emma Turtelboom. What is the best Halloween candy? In this blog post, we will identify attributes of popular sweets and create a model to understand how these attributes influence the popularity of the sweet. We’ll discuss alternative model approaches and potential drawbacks, as well as caveats to interpreting the predictions of our model.