Qualitative Methods

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.

Introduction to Field Experiments and Randomized Controlled Trials

July 24, 2023
by Leena Bhai. This blog post provides an introduction to field experimentation and its significance in understanding cause and effect. It explains how randomized experiments represent an unbiased method for determining what works. It delves into essential features of experiments such as intervention, excludability, and non-interference. It then works through a fictional example of a randomized controlled trial of the efficacy of an experimental drug Covi-Mapp.

Unlock the Joy and Power of Reading in Language Learning

August 21, 2023
by Bowen Wang-Kildegaard. I share my story of how reading for pleasure transformed my English speaking and writing skills. This experience inspired my passion to promote the joy and power of reading to all language learners. Using natural language processing techniques, I dive into the Language Learning subreddit, revealing a trend: Learners are often highly anxious about output practices, but are generally positive about input methods like reading and listening. I then distill complex language learning theories into actionable language learning tips, emphasizing the value of extensive reading for pleasure, pointing to potential methods like using ChatGPT for customization of reading materials, and advocating for joy in the learning journey.

Getting Started with Surveys

October 18, 2022
Getting Started With Surveys

Surveys can be an extremely useful tool for gathering information from individuals and groups. They are used across disciplines and industries to help researchers learn more about populations and gain actionable insights. I’ve done extensive survey research in nonprofit and industry settings, using these data to improve programs, make changes to technology, design communications plans, make content acquisition decisions, and much more. In this blog post, I’ll focus on one of the most important parts of survey research — planning....

Bo Yun Park, Ph.D.

Postdoc
D-Lab

I am a Postdoctoral Scholar in the D-Lab at the University of California, Berkeley. My research lies at the intersection of political, cultural, and transnational sociology. I am particularly interested in dynamics of social inclusion and exclusion, social change, technology, and digital politics. My dissertation investigated how political strategists in France and the United States craft narratives of political leadership for presidential candidates in the digital age. I received my Ph.D. in Sociology at Harvard University, where I was affiliated with the Institute for Quantitative Social...

Abhishek Roy

IUSE Undergraduate Advisory Board
Economics
Data Science

I'm Abhishek Roy and I'm double majoring in Economics and Data Science. I've been a part of D-Lab's IUSE project since Spring 2020 and have truly found an organization that is not only passionate about Data Science but also strives to expand its reach equitably to all communities. I am involved in Research and Project Management roles in various departments and labs at Berkeley and I'm an Editor at the Berkeley Economic Review. I love diving into anything at the intersection of Data Science, Economics, Business, and Computational Social Science. Whenever I'm free, I love writing...

Diana Casanova

Consultant
Graduate School of Education

Diana Casanova is a fourth-year Ph.D. candidate with the Graduate School of Education. Diana’s research is focused on the policies and practices that empower family and community stakeholders to act collectively and affect social change. Specifically, she studies the implementation of California’s school finance reform, which includes a more structured and democratic process of stakeholder engagement, seeking to illustrate the relationship between a state initiative aimed at bringing families into policy-making spaces and the ways that families find and make meaning in these spaces...

Erin Manalo-Pedro

Research Fellow
Community Health Sciences (UCLA)

Erin Manalo-Pedro is a Ph.D. student in the Department of Community Health Sciences at the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health with a minor in education. She focuses her racial health equity research on curriculum, the health workforce, and political interventions for communities of color. Drawing from Public Health Critical Race Praxis and Pinayism, she aims to use methods, like natural language processing and counter storytelling, to document the subtleties of structural racism and resistance from marginalized groups.

To guide her interdisciplinary approach, Erin leverages
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Caroline Figueroa, MD, Ph.D.

Research Fellow, Digital Health Social Justice Project Lead
School of Social Welfare
Digital Health Social Justice

Caroline Figueroa, MD Ph.D., is a Postdoctoral Scholar at UC Berkeley School of Social Welfare. She obtained her MD degree and Ph.D. degree at the University of Amsterdam in the Netherlands. Her Ph.D. research took place at the University of Amsterdam and at the University of Oxford, where she studied cognitive and neurobiological vulnerability factors for recurrence of depression in patients remitted from Major Depressive Disorder. Current research interest is on digital interventions for depression, with an emphasis on developing cutting-edge innovations that tailor to the needs of...

Swetha Pola

Research Fellow
School of Information

Swetha (she/her) is a 5th Year Master of Information and Data Science student at the School of Information, with experience in Cognitive Science, Psychology research, and product management. Her research interests include building ethical, transparent AI and the impacts of technologies (specifically, mass media, surveillance, and algorithms of bias) on longitudinal behavioral health. She is happy to help with questions on Python, R, SQL, machine learning, neural networks, statistical analysis, and research design!

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