Other

Gaby May Lagunes

Consultant
ESPM

Hello! I’m Gaby (she/her). I am PhD student at the ESPM department, I hold a masters in Data Science and Information from the Berkeley ISchool and I have 5+ years of industrial experience in different data roles. Before that I got a masters in Engineering for International Development and an undergraduate degree in Physics from University College London. And somewhere between all that I got married, survived the pandemic, and had two awesome boys. I’m very excited to help you use data to enhance your work and your experience here at Berkeley!

How can we use big data from iNaturalist to address important questions in Entomology?

February 26, 2024
Leah Lee
by Leah Lee. Large-scale geographic data over time on insect diversity can be used to answer important questions in Entomology. Open-source, open-access citizen science platforms like iNaturalist generate huge amounts of data on species diversity and distribution at accelerating rates. However, unstructured citizen science data contain inherent biases and need to be used with care. One of the efforts to validate big data from iNaturalist is to cross-check with systematically collected data, such as museum specimens.

Nimita Gaggar

Consulting Drop-In Hours: By appointment only

Consulting Areas: Python, R, Qualitative methods, R Programming, Other, RStudio

Quick-tip: the fastest way to speak to a consultant is to first submit a request and then ...

Social Sciences D-Lab Celebrates a Decade of Innovation and Welcomes New Leadership

December 4, 2023
Claudia von Vacano
by Claudia von Vacano, Ph.D. On November 8, 2023, the Social Sciences D-Lab celebrated its 10th anniversary with the introduction of the new faculty director, Demography Professor Dennis Feehan. The event celebrated D-Lab’s accomplishment with the outgoing faculty director Sociology Professor Dave Harding. Social Sciences Dean, Raka Ray, offered warm congratulations to the leadership and staff, underscoring the importance of promoting equity in computational social sciences and the support of qualitative methods research.

María Martín López

Data Science Fellow
Psychology

María Martín López is a PhD student in the Cognition area within the Department of Psychology. Her research relates to cognitive computational and quantitative models of individual differences in behaviors, thoughts, and emotions. She is particularly interested in how we can create and leverage novel algorithms to understand, measure, and predict processes relating to externalizing psychopathology (e.g. impulsivity, aggression, substance use). She answers these questions using a range of computational and quantitive models including AI, NLP, SEM, time series analysis, multi-level...

Nimita Gaggar

Consultant
Public Health

Passionate and driven Public Health graduate student at UC Berkeley with a strong background in program management and a relentless pursuit of excellence. I have 5+ years of experience in program management and operations in the healthcare industry. My academic journey at UC Berkeley has equipped me with a multifaceted skill set, blending strategic thinking, data-driven decision-making, and effective communication. I thrive in fast-paced, dynamic environments and have a proven ability to lead cross-functional teams toward project success.

Scarlet Bliss, MS

Domain Consultant, Research IT
School of Public Health

Scarlet Bliss is an MS/PhD student in Epidemiology in the School of Public Health. Her work focuses on mixed methods approaches to characterizing and preventing spread of antimicrobial resistance and other enteric pathogens via the environment. She has experience in statistical analysis and public health bioinformatics. She is interested in ethical use of big data as it relates to epidemiologic research.

Black History Data

February 28, 2023
Patty Frontiera, Ph.D.
by Patty Frontiera, Ph.D. D-Lab is excited to announce the publication of two articles and associated datasets on the Louisiana Slave Conspiracies Project (LSC). This is a project of collaboration from many of our D-Lab staff and student researchers, under the direction of Professor Bryan Wagner as the Principal Investigator (PI). The LSC project is dedicated to preserving, digitizing, transcribing, translating, and analyzing historical manuscripts concerning two slave conspiracies organized at the Pointe Coupée Post in the Spanish territory of Louisiana in 1791 and 1795. Our research outputs include (1) complete bibliographic and demographic information as well as (2) geospatial place data that were extracted from trial records related to these two conspiracies:

Using Artificial Intelligence to Help Write Code

February 28, 2023
Daniel Tan
by Daniel Tan. ChatGPT is a natural language processing model that has applications in a wide variety of research settings. It is a chatbot-style tool that was created by OpenAI using a deep learning model that allows it to generate human-like responses to a wide variety of questions and prompts spanning a multitude of topics. Because it has been trained on a large body of text, ChatGPT is a particularly useful tool for programming. This post explores ways to use ChatGPT to help write code in Stata, a statistical software package that is widely used in academic and policy research.

The Geography of Cannabis: Does California’s dual licensing program (de)criminalize cannabis and drive unnecessary anthropogenic activity in remote rural environments?

August 29, 2023
Chevon Holmes
by Chevon Holmes. When California voters (de)criminalized cannabis production, the state’s dual licensure requirement forced local jurisdictions to create permitting programs or uphold prohibition. Many Counties developed ersatz zoning ordinances to regulate cannabis activities and hired staff to administer local permits. As an inspector, administrator, and project planner for Mendocino County from 2017-2021, I visited hundreds of cultivation sites and production facilities where I learned first-hand how two legal pathways impacted the ways in which operators could transition their businesses. This post details a dataset created to track, aggregate, and analyze the relationship between cannabis infrastructure and licensing.