Monday, February 10th, 2025

11:30AM – 12:30PM Love Data Week Kickoff Presentation: Cancer: Unlocking the Code in the Cell, Clinic and Community: Who’s doing cancer research anyway? by Sheldon Holder, MD, PhD Lunch will be served (Hybrid/4th Floor Multipurpose Room, South Street Landing, 350 Eddy Street accessible by Brown shuttle)

Sheldon L. Holder, MD, PhD is a physician scientist at the Legorreta Cancer Center at Brown University. Dr. Holder is a board-certified medical oncologist who maintains an active oncology clinic. He has keen interests in cancer disparities and was awarded the Robert A. Winn Diversity in Clinical Trials Career Development Award. This award consists of a 2-year curriculum in clinical trial design, development, and implementation as well as a focus on community engagement and enhancing health equity in research. His efforts during the program resulted in the creation of an Outreach and Participatory Knowledge Board (an“everyday person” community advisory board) at the Legorreta Cancer Center, the creation of Color of Cancer (www.colorofcancer.live) a community cancer story telling initiative, and Cancer Talk Café – informal meet, greet, and discuss events between members of the cancer center and the community. Dr. Holder is the Associate Director for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion for the Legorreta Cancer Center. He is also the founder and Executive Director of the Historically Black College and University Cancer Trials Consortium (HBCU-CTC).  His talk entitled “Cancer: Unlocking the Code in the Cell, Clinic and Community: Who’s doing cancer research anyway?” will highlight how the most effective research involves scientists and community.

1:00 – 2:00PM Info-sacer: The Great Firewall and the Bare Data of Digital Refugees Lunch will be served (Hybrid/4th Floor Multipurpose Room, South Street Landing, 350 Eddy Street accessible by Brown shuttle) Presentation by Jinying Li, PhD Assistant Professor, Modern Culture and Media, Brown University).

China’s Great Firewall (GFW) is a massive and sophisticated information regulation and surveillance system that operates through protocol-based computational activities on the network topology. It has been recognized as the signification and enactment of China’s claim of Internet sovereignty. Tackling the long-standing debates about whether the sovereignty of nation-state can be claimed over global information networks that do not recognize borders and territories as such, this talk interrogates the techno-political relationship between the protocologic control and network sovereignty by examining the computational structure and operational logics of the Great Firewall. Borrowing Agamben’s concept of “homo-sacer,” I argue that network sovereignty is declared and operated through what I call the “info-sacer” – the censored information ascribed within the juridical power only to be subjected to deletion and elimination, that is, to be “killed and yet not sacrificed.” The info-sacer is generated through sovereignty’s signature operation of inclusive exclusion, as the censoring mechanism of the Great Firewall is both the example and exception of the protocologic control that manages information connectivity through open agreements. The GFW system relies on the standard protocols to block connections rather than to enable open communications, which establishes a state of exception for the sovereign through technological means, generating and banishing the info-sacer by subjecting it to the inclusive structure of protocologic control only to be excluded as an exceptional existence from the protocol-enabled network connectivity. The notion of info-sacer thus underlines the intersection between informatic forms and life forms in their shared relationship with the sovereign power.

Tuesday, February 11th, 2025

11:00AM – 12:00PM The URSA Initiative: Navigating EHR Data Sharing and Access in Rhode Island (Online only)

Description: The Unified Research data Sharing and Access (URSA) Initiative was launched in 2015 with the overall goal of making electronic health record (EHR) and other health data accessible and usable for research purposes across Rhode Island in partnership with information technology, compliance, legal, and research offices at Brown University and health data partners. This panel presentation will start with an overview of the underlying data governance and cyberinfrastructure for the URSA Initiative. Resources and services at Brown for ensuring appropriate management and sharing of health data will then be described, from executing Data Use Agreements (DUA) to providing regulatory advice to working in secure computing environments to addressing National Institutes of Health (NIH) data sharing policies.

Presenters:

• Liz Chen and Karen Crowley, Brown Center for Biomedical Informatics (BCBI) and Advance RI-CTR Biomedical Informatics, Bioinformatics, and Cyberinfrastructure Enhancement (BIBCE) Core
• Jen Murphy and Vanessa Sherman, Brown Division of Research – Research Agreements and Contracting
• Ximena Levy, Brown Division of Research – Regulatory Advising
• Alexandra Boutros and Sheila Vandal, Brown Division of Research – Human Research Protection Program (HRPP)
• Paul Stey, Brown Office of Information Technology
• Andrew Creamer, Brown University Library

12:00 – 1:00PM Clinical Data Sharing and Reuse on the Vivli Platform (Online only)

Rebecca Li, PhD, CEO of VivliVivli is a global clinical research data-sharing platform that focuses on sharing anonymized individual participant-level data. In celebration of Brown’s Love Data Week, please join us for an online presentation about how you can utilize Brown’s new membership with Vivli to comply with the NIH Data Management and Sharing (DMS) Policy and share data resulting from prospective and protocol-driven clinical research projects. Hear from Rebecca Li, PhD, CEO of Vivli, and academic staff on their experiences using Vivli to support researchers with carrying out their NIH Data Management and Sharing Plans.

12:30 – 1:30 Managing Research & Citations with Zotero: An Introduction (In-Person Room 134 Hecker Center in Rockefeller Library) Jason Cerrato, STEM Education Librarian

Looking for a way to organize a messy folder of references? Are you writing a paper or manuscript and are very uninterested in formatting citations? Zotero is a powerful bibliographic management tool that collects, organizes, and cites references in a snap. Join us in this workshop designed to get you up and running with additional tips and tricks to save you time. This workshop is open to all undergraduate and graduate students, staff, and faculty.

1:00PM – 1:15PM Leveraging the Global Health Security Index: Pandemic Preparedness Data for Action (Online only) Lightning presentation by Margaret Dunne, PhD Student in Epidemiology (Brown University Pandemic Center)

This presentation will demonstrate the power of the Global Health Security Index (the Index) to support global public health leaders and policymakers in efforts to strengthen pandemic preparedness and response. Developed by scholars now at Brown University, in collaboration with the Nuclear Threat Initiative and Economist Impact, the Index collects data on 171 questions across six categories (prevention, detection and reporting, rapid response, health system, compliance with international norms, and the risk environment) from publicly available data sources. Once collected, the data is cleaned and stored in an open access data model. This presentation will focus on the utility of the data model, including the rich amount of information available for each country and the ability to investigate trends between countries within a region or income group. Additionally, the presentation will highlight the success of a recent roundtable meeting with experts in global health security on the African continent where we shared findings from an analysis of key health security indicators that were shown to be of great importance during the COVID-19 pandemic. This data sharing exercise helped garner extremely helpful feedback from meeting participants about ways that the GHS Index might better serve African partners as a flexible tool to identify priorities for bolstering pandemic preparedness and tracking progress – demonstrating the importance and utility of sharing data back with those who can utilize it to make decisions to improve health security.

Wednesday, February 12th, 2025

11:30-12:30 Participants not Subjects: Furthering Engagement and Respect in Long-term Research Projects Lunch will be served. Division of Research DIAC Keynote Panel Event with Stephen Buka, ScD Professor of Epidemiology at the Brown University School of Public Health (Hybrid/4th Floor Multipurpose Room, South Street Landing, 350 Eddy Street accessible by Brown shuttle)

The New England Family Study has studied the health and development of 15,000 families from Rhode Island and Massachusetts since the 1950s.  Over the past seven decades, dozens of research projects and hundreds of publications have led to new insights about the early causes of a variety of conditions, ranging from gambling to heart disease and schizophrenia.  Three generations have participated, with many volunteering for long and sometimes demanding study assessments. This work is possible solely due to the goodwill and readiness of study participants and flexibility from scientists to accommodate participant interests and constraints. This session will include senior scientists, cohort members, and local creative teams who have made this landmark investigation possible. 

1:00 – 2:00 PM Elevating the Labor of Data Hybrid – Petteruti Lounge (Room 201), Faunces House, 75 Waterman Street, Providence, RI )

The graphs and charts displayed in newspapers, reports, billboards, and screens are the end-product of months and (potentially) years of labor and care. This labor requires meticulous review of spreadsheets and cells, reorienting tables over and over again and deep conversations with other people about the context around the datasets powering our decision-making and knowledge systems. The Community-Engaged Data and Evaluation Collaborative (CEDEC), an initiative of the Swearer Center for Public Service at Brown, elevates the value of the time and care required to prepare datasets for beautiful visualizations and compelling storytelling. These collection, entry and cleaning tasks have been central to building trust in our collaborations and the foundation of analytical and visualization partnerships.

In this panel discussion moderated by Leah Shaw, a PhD Student in the Department of Epidemiology at Brown’s School of Public Health and CEDEC Graduate Assistant, we’ll hear about two interdisciplinary collaborations connected through CEDEC:

A Data Science Institute-funded partnership between the City of Providence Parks Department (North Burial Ground) and a Presidential Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Anthropology, leveraging artificial intelligence, a team of student researchers and 300+ years of historical archaeological data to understand a more expansive history of Providence and the United States.

A partnership with the RI Farm to School Network that spans projects in a course in the Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs and with an Applied Mathematics-Computer Science concentrator and the Swearer Center for Public Service to communicate the statewide impact and commitment to local food in schools.

Panel Speakers:

• Annalisa Heppner (North Burial Ground, City of Providence Parks)
• Caitlin Mandel (Co-chair of RI Farm & Sea to School Network/ Farm to Child Nutrition Specialist at the RI Dept. of Education)
• Nasir Perera-Olivo (Applied Mathematics-Computer Science Undergraduate Concentrator, CEDEC Student Employee)
• Jordi Rivera Prince (Department of Anthropology)

3:00 – 4:00PM Designing maps for empowerment (Hybrid – Petteruti Lounge (Room 201), Faunces House, 75 Waterman Street, Providence, RI )

Maps wield a lot of power. They define boundaries, build worlds, and can include or exclude entire histories and people in a single visual. Many choices going into designing a map have clear consequences—projections can distort the size and shapes of places; spatial analyses using various raster resolutions can lead to widely different conclusions. However, many choices are much less straightforward—how does data access affect the stories and analyses we share with maps? How do we contextualize spatial data with peoples’ lived experiences? The Community-Engaged Data and Evaluation Collaboration (CEDEC), an initiative of the Swearer Center for Public Service at Brown, sees defining research questions from community-identified priorities as a way forward to grapple with some of spatial storytelling’s most vexing challenges and limitations. CEDEC facilitates mutually beneficial campus-community partnerships, where Brown University students, faculty, staff and Rhode Island nonprofits and public agencies come together to answer the questions and seek data solutions identified by the community as priorities.

In this panel discussion moderated by Chloe Jazzy Lau, Bonner Community Fellow at the Swearer Center and International and Public Affairs concentrator, we’ll hear from students and Rhode Island community partners about the ways they told stories and shared data through maps in empowering ways. Leveraging software and languages such as ArcGIS and StoryMaps, this discussion will span a wide array of choices and possibilities that partners make when sharing power, amplifying voices, and expanding information access across contexts. The partnerships we will highlight include:

Thesis and GIS course-based projects with the Providence Neighborhood Planting Program to communicate tree and climate data that intersect with climate, education and policy issues.

A collaborative project between the Providence Public Library and the Swearer Center to digitize a walking tour of the LGBTQ+ History of the City of Providence with ArcGIS StoryMaps. See the project here.

Panel speakers:

• Kate Wells (RI State Librarian, then Curator of Rhode Island Collections, Providence Public Library)
• Jordan Schmolka (Director of Operations & Urban Forest Collaboration, Providence Neighborhood Planting Program)
• Tabatha Hirsch (Brown University Environmental Studies Concentrator)
• Noreen Chen (Brown University Environmental Science and Computer Science Concentrator)

Thursday, February 13th, 2025

8:00 – 9:00AM Tracing Data Lineages in the HemOnc Knowledgebase and VarStack Breakfast will be served (Hybrid/Room 301 – 3rd Floor of the George Building at Rhode Island Hospital (593 Eddy Street, George 315, Providence accessible by Brown shuttle)

Presenters:

Jeremy Warner MD, MS, FAMIA, FASCO (Professor of Biostatistics, Professor of Medicine, Brown University)

Ece Uzun, MS, PhD, FAMIA (Associate Professor of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, Brown University)

The HemOnc knowledgebase (KB) is an NCI-funded project intended to capture granular details of the treatment of cancer and blood disorders, including the evidence base supporting treatments and the regulatory indications for treatment from FDA and others. The treatment of cancer is highly complex and constantly evolving, and there are currently more than 5000 treatments supported by nearly 8000 references in the KB; there are more than 7,000,000 facts currently captured within the KB. These facts are primarily derived from the published literature, and provenance is critical for understanding the importance of the underlying data. The HemOnc KB is used by real-world data aggregators and also informs the NCI thesaurus, the reference standard for cancer concepts. In the first part of the talk, the importance of provenance will be discussed, as well as the importance of community contributions. VarStack, a user-friendly web tool, streamlines the interpretation of clinical significance of variants by retrieving and integrating data from multiple publicly available databases. In the second part of the talk, the discussion will focus on variant interpretation tools and their practical applications.

12:00 – 1:00PM Resources for Centering Racial Equity in Data (Online only)

Join the People, Place & Health Collective and the COBRE on Opioids and Overdose for our inaugural series on racial equity and methods. Over the course of four talks from leading experts, attendees will learn about rigorous methods for evaluating and addressing racial equity with respect to the nation’s overdose crisis.

Erik Wills, MPH, Human Research Specialist at the People, Place & Health Collective, will share valuable tools and best practices for integrating racial equity into research. This presentation will provide an overview of the resource library that is available to the COBRE community. The library offers articles, toolkits, and webinars that address key topics such as: the data life cycle, best practices, evaluation, visualization, and result dissemination—all through a racial equity lens. These resources are designed to support researchers at every stage of their work, from design to dissemination.

2:00 – 3:00PM Nuts and bolts: Version Control for Humanists (In-Person DSL Room 137 Rockefeller Library) Center for Digital Scholarship (CDS) and Center for Library Exploration and Research (CLEAR)

Learn about git, a powerful tool for keeping track of your work (whether it’s code, data, writing/prose, etc.) and collaborating with others – including future-you! This workshop assumes no prior knowledge and introduces you to the popular version-control system git and its web-hosted counterpart, GitHub. We will also explore use cases in digital scholarship, reproducible research, and web development as three areas where you can apply these skills.

Friday, February 14th, 2025

10:00 – 11:00AM Climate Science Panel: Wildfire smoke: what is their impact on health? And Navigating the Climate Science Deluge: Training Language Models to Assist in Comprehensive Assessments (Online Only)

Presenters:

Stephen Bach, PhD (Assistant Professor of Computer Science, Brown University) Dr. Bach will present a lightning talk from 10-10:15am

Roberta De Vito, PhD (Thomas J. and Alice M. Tisch Assistant Professor of Biostatistics and Data Science, Assistant Professor of Biostatistics and Data Science, Brown University) Dr. De Vito will present from 10:15-11am

Descriptions: 

Dr. Bach will discuss how reviewing and summarizing the growing body of climate science literature via comprehensive assessments is a critical task for guiding future research and policy, but the exponential growth of climate literature is a bottleneck. For example, the roughly 250 authors of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Sixth Assessment Report (Physical Sciences Basis) manually reviewed over 14,000 papers: one 20-author chapter team alone assessed over 1,500 papers! I will discuss our team’s work to build AI-powered tools that assist scientists writing comprehensive assessments. Our team spans computer science; earth, environmental and planetary sciences; and the University Library. Our goal is to co-design a system that can aid in navigating this deluge of critical data.

Dr. De Vito will discuss how wildfire smoke represents a growing public health concern due to its significant contribution to air pollution. Comprising fine particulate matter (PM2.5), carbon monoxide, and volatile organic compounds (VOCs), wildfire smoke exacerbates air quality issues, particularly in regions experiencing prolonged fire seasons. These pollutants have far-reaching health implications, including respiratory illnesses, cardiovascular disease, and heightened vulnerability among sensitive populations such as children, the elderly, and individuals with pre-existing conditions.

In this study, we employ advanced statistical approaches to quantify the impact of wildfire smoke on fine particulate matter concentrations. We will utilize both simulations and real data applications in the United States to characterize the relationship between wildfire activity and air quality degradation. This interdisciplinary approach provides a robust framework for understanding the health risks associated with increasing wildfire frequency and intensity due to climate change. Our findings can inform public health interventions and policy strategies to mitigate these growing threats.

12:00 – 1:00PM The Brown Center for Biomedical Informatics: Leveraging EHRs and AI to Advance Biomedical Discovery and Healthcare Delivery (Online only)

Founded in 2015, the Brown Center for Biomedical Informatics (BCBI) is involved with the development, application, and evaluation of data- and technology-driven approaches across the full spectrum of biomedicine and health care. BCBI faculty, staff, and students are applying these approaches to support artificial intelligence (AI) in healthcare, clinical and translational research, and learning health systems as part of transdisciplinary collaborations. In this panel presentation, an overview of research, education, and service activities in BCBI will first be provided. Examples of projects in BCBI research labs involving the use of electronic health record (EHR) data, application of AI methods such as machine learning and natural language processing, and development and evaluation of AI-based clinical decision support tools in EHR systems will then be provided.

Presenters:

Liz Chen. Director of the Center for Biomedical Informatics and Advance RI-CTR Biomedical Informatics, Bioinformatics, and Cyberinfrastructure Enhancement (BIBCE) Core, Associate Professor of Medical Science, Associate Professor of Health Services, Policy and Practice

Hamish Fraser, Associate Professor of Medical Science, Associate Professor of Health Services, Policy and Practice

Neil Sarkar, President and Chief Executive Officer of the Rhode Island Quality Institute, Associate Professor of Medical Science, Associate Professor of Health Services, Policy and Practice

Amina Abdullahi, ScM, PhD Student in Computer Science

12:00 – 1:00PM Mojo: the Programming Language for Artificial Intelligence (Hybrid – 164 Angell Street,  Carney Innovation Area, Floor 4 Join via Zoom / Add to Calendar) Paul Stey, Assistant CIO Research Software Engineering and Data Science Leadership, CCV.

DSCoV (Data Science, Computation, and Visualization) workshops are lunchtime introductions to basic data science and programming skills and tools, offered by and for Brown staff, faculty, and students (with occasional presenters from outside Brown). The workshops are interactive, so bring a laptop. All are welcome, and pizza is served.

2:00 – 3:00PM From OLS to GPT: How LLMs Work and Why They Work Well (Online only) Alyssa Bilinski, PhD (Peterson Assistant Professor of Health Policy, Assistant Professor of Health Services, Policy and Practice and Biostatistics at the Brown University School of Public Health)

This presentation provides an accessible overview of generative pre-trained transformers (GPTs) for an undergraduate audience familiar with basic statistical concepts like ordinary least squares (OLS) and generalized linear models (GLMs). It specifically explains the mathematical structure underlying GPTs in terms of simple models. The presentation begins with a foundational review of OLS and GLMs, introduces neural networks in terms of GLMs, and finally discusses innovations in neural networks that defined GPTs: tokens, semantic and positional embeddings, the attention mechanism, and transformer architecture. Last it discusses training and fine-tuning LLMs, with a focus on data inputs. Overall, the presentation aims to bridge the gap between classical statistics and modern AI, empowering students to better understand, evaluate, and effectively apply GPT models to their work.

Monday, February 12th, 2024

12:00-1pm (Hybrid) All of Us Researcher Workbench Lunch & Learn with Dr. Liz Chen, Dr. Eunyoung Cho, Zaim Haq, and Kelsey Sawyer, Love Data Week Kick-off Event Presented in collaboration with the Office of the Vice President for Research Diversity & Inclusion Action Committee (OVPR DIAC), BCBI and Advance RI-CTR 

Join Liz Chen, PhD, FACMI (Interim Director of the Brown Center for Biomedical Informatics (BCBI), Associate Professor of Medical Science, Associate Professor of Health Services, Policy & Practice, and Lead for the Advance RI-CTR Biomedical Informatics, Bioinformatics, and Cyberinfrastructure Enhancement Core), Eunyoung Cho, ScD,  Associate Professor and Director of Research in the Department of Dermatology at the Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University and Associate Professor in the Department of Epidemiology at Brown School of Public Health, Zaim Haq (MD’26 student), and Kelsey Sawyer, MS, Health Sciences Librarian for Biomedical Research Support, to learn about the All of Us Research Program and use of its data for informing studies on a variety of health conditions. As part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), this program is committed to recruiting a diverse participant pool that includes members of groups that have been left out of research in the past. All of Us aims to collect and study data from at least one million people living in the United States to help build one of the most diverse health databases in history, which can be accessed through the All of Us Researcher Workbench. This presentation will provide an introduction to the All of Us Researcher Workbench, discuss how it is being used by Brown researchers, and share best practices for working with All of Us data at Brown. 

12:00-1pm (In-Person) Overview of The Ocean State Spatial Database presented by Frank Donnelly, Head of GIS and Data Services

A presentation and demo of the Ocean State Spatial Database, a free and open-source GIS resource for Rhode Island spatial analysis and thematic mapping, created by the GeoData@SciLi team at the Brown University Library. We will cover how the database was created with QGIS, Python, and spatial SQL, and how you can use it for your mapping projects.

Tuesday, February 13th, 2024 

11:00am-12 (Virtual) Need Health Data? Jonah Bradenday and Karen M.Crowley, MS, PhD, Presented in collaboration with the Brown Center for Biomedical Informatics and Advance RI-CTR Biomedical Informatics, Bioinformatics, and Cyberinfrastructure Enhancement Core (BIBCE)

Are you requesting data from a health data partner? Communicating with a programmer on your research team? Querying a health database yourself? This presentation will help you specify your study cohorts and research data requests in a way that can be clearly communicated and programmed.  

3:00pm-4 (In-Person) Overcoming Data Cleaning Challenges

This workshop will use OpenRefine, a free, open-source tool that allows you to clean and transform messy data in a transparent and reproducible way. In this workshop, we will delve into the intricacies of whitespaces, tackle missing values head-on, and decode the enigma of dates posing as text. Whether you’re a seasoned researcher, a dedicated instructor, or an enthusiastic student, this workshop is will give you hands-on time with tools to help transform messy data and provide a space to share experiences working with, and overcoming the challenges of working with messy or unstructured data.

3:00-4:30pm(Virtual) Introduction To NVivo (Mac Based) Workshop with Dr. Rochelle Rosen, Grace Smith, MA, and Ryan Lantini, MA Presented in collaboration with the Advance RI-CTR Biomedical Informatics, Bioinformatics, and Cyberinfrastructure Enhancement Core (BIBCE)

Join us for a virtual Advance RI-CTR Introduction to NVivo Workshop (Mac Based) with Dr. Rochelle Rosen, Grace Smith, MA, and Ryan Lantini, MA. This workshop will be a general overview of and introduction to NVivo software and its potential uses. To learn more about NVivo and other qualitative research resources, please go to the Advance RI-CTR Qualitative Research Resources page.

Wednesday, February 14th, 2024 

Happy Valentines! Check out other data-focused talks happening today on campus!

12PM (Hybrid) DEEPS Planetary Lunch Bunch: Steven D’Hondt (URI) Life Beneath the Seafloor

12PM (Rm 368 CIT) CS Talk: Emma Dauterman: Secure systems from insecure components 

12PM (Rm 220 Marcuvitz Auditorium) MCB Talk: Aron Lukacher (Penn State College of Medicine) “Polyomavirus Wakes Up and Chooses Neurovirulence” 

2PM (Hybrid) Legoretta Talk: John LaCava LINE-1 Retrotransposons: Interactomes, Structures and Implications for Human Disease 

4PM (Hybrid) CCMB Zhongming Zhao (University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston) The Road to Precision Health: Harnessing Big Genomic Data 

Thursday, February 15th, 2024

10-11am (Virtual) Introduction to LabArchives Electronic Lab Notebooks.

Join Brown Library and LabArchives for for an online training on Zoom getting started using LabArchives electronic lab notebooks for research. 

11:00am-12 (Virtual) Need Health Data Codes? An Introduction to Health Terminologies. Jonah Bradenday and Karen M.Crowley, MS, PhD, Presented in collaboration with Brown Center for Biomedical Informatics and Advance RI-CTR Biomedical Informatics, Bioinformatics, and Cyberinfrastructure Enhancement Core (BIBCE)

In health databases, clinical concepts from diagnoses to lab results are represented by health terminology codes. These codes allow for more efficient and accurate queries. This presentation will point you toward the references and resources you need to turn your clinical concepts into computable code lists.

Friday, February 16th, 2024

12:00-1pm (Virtual) Introduction to the FAIR Principles and Recommended Practices and Resources for Managing Research Data. Andrew Creamer, Open Science Librarian, Brown University Library

This workshop provides an overview of the FAIR Principles (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable) and recommended practices for managing research data with the goal of making data discoverable and reusable

2:00PM-3PM (Hybrid) Community-Engaged Data: Addressing Rhode Island’s Data and Research Priorities through Collaboration, a Panel led by Dr. Dan Turner, Assistant Director, Community-Engaged Data and Evaluation Collaborative at Brown University

In this panel discussion, we’ll chat with community partner panelists from nonprofits and public agencies about their leadership in leveraging data in service of Rhode Island community priorities. Panelist include partners from Nuevas Voces of the Woonasquatucket River Watershed Council, ConnectRI at RI Commerce, and NeighborWorks Blackstone River Valley. 

Monday, February 13th, 2023

10:00AM-11:00AM Online Webinar: Love Data Week Keynote “Repairing the Algorithmic Lens” presented by Dr. Suresh Venkatasubramanian, Professor of Data Science and Computer Science

We now know what happens when we take the algorithmic lens — floods of data, powerful devices, and years of innovation in algorithm design — and set it to the task of predicting and controlling human behavior. The results are not pretty: algorithms have turbocharged the delivery of biased and unjust outcomes, in law enforcement, employment, education, medical care, and virtually every place where people come in contact with tech-assisted decision making. But technology is malleable. We can build the solutions we want as long as we make sure to bring people – and their concerns – to the forefront, and shift the focus of tech design away from efficiency or cost and towards justice and inclusiveness. We must repair the algorithmic lens so it can empower us – and all of us – in our full humanity.

Professor Venkatasubramanian will talk about the new Center for Tech Responsibility at Brown and how it seeks to carry out this vision of building technology that serves the needs of all — and especially those that tech has left behind.

11:00AM-12:00PM Online Presentation: Research in Humanitarian Disasters and Complex Emergencies presented by Dr. Adam Levine, Professor of Emergency Medicine

Both disasters and conflict pose significant threats to human security. Separately or in tandem, they turn citizens into refugees and displaced people, stretch government capacity, and, increasingly, spark chronic disorder and instability. Despite significant gains made in other areas of global health and human development, the numbers of people affected by humanitarian crises continues to grow each year due to the effects of climate change and population movement. Yet humanitarian practice today remains much like medicine 50 years ago: based largely on anecdotes with little empiric research to guide it. Humanitarian organizations and professionals respond to new disasters and complex emergencies with the same sets of tools and assumptions they used for the last crisis, never knowing whether they are truly implementing the most effective interventions possible for the populations they are working to serve. During this talk, Dr. Levine will discuss the most common barriers to conducting research in humanitarian crises, and provide some real-world examples of how to overcome those barriers from his own experiences responding to and conducting research during humanitarian crises in Africa, South Asia, and the Caribbean over the past decade.

12:00PM-1:00PM Online Presentation: Using Mobility and Social Mixing Data to Predict and Prevent Future Pandemics presented by Dr. Mark Lurie, Professor of Epidemiology

Infectious diseases spread from person-to-person meaning that the way we interact with others is a critical determinant of epidemic and pandemic potential. Dr. Lurie will discuss his new NSF-funded project which uses data on human mobility and social mixing to predict and prevent future pandemics.

1:00PM-2:00PM Online Presentation: The NIH Policy for Data Management and Sharing: Putting Policy into Practice presented by Arielle Nitenson, PhD (OVPR) and Andrew Creamer, MA, MSLIS (University Library) 

The new NIH Policy on Data Management and Sharing went into effect on January 25, 2023. How have the departments at Brown that support researchers prepared for this new policy? How should researchers prepare for changes in proposal development, data collection, and depositing data? How does the policy impact research, including updating documentation for informed consent, new pre- and post-award engagement with NIH repositories, and updated timelines for data preparation and depositing? Resources will be shared such as templates to help researchers with writing plans, tools for managing their data throughout a project, and sharing data during and after a project closes.

1:00PM-2:00PM In-person Workshop: Pattern matching and data cleaning using Regular Expressions presented by Patrick Rashleigh, Head, Center for Digital Scholarship Technology Services (University Library)

Location: Rockefeller Library (10 Prospect Street), Room 137 Digital Scholarship Lab (DSL) 

‘Okay, you know how to do search and replace in Word. But what if you need to look for word variants? Or numbers of unknown length and format? What if you need to do a search-and-replace to clean up some data that involves something a more complicated than just replace X with Y? Regular expressions are a concise way of doing this kind of complex pattern matching, and they are wonderfully useful for cleaning data (numeric and textual), text mining, and such. A super-useful tool to keep in your (digital) back pocket!

2:30PM-3:00PM Online Presentation: Research Computing Services at CCV: Determining the Right Data Storage Option for You presented by Mark Dieterich, Chief Information Security Officer, and Paul Stey, Assistant CIO, Research Software Engineering and Data Science (Office of Information Technology)

OIT’s Center for Computation and Visualization (CCV) provides Brown’s research community with a variety of services for research computing. This includes research computing consultants, data scientists, and research software engineers who are available for short-, medium-, and long-term collaborations. This also includes infrastructure to support research computing as well as the storage and sharing of files. Join Mark and Paul in this overview of CCV’s services and infrastructure as well as a high-level summary of factors to consider in deciding where to store data. The session will include a look at Brown’s data risk classification system, CCV’s file storage and transfer guide, and include time for your questions.

Tuesday, February 14th, 2023

10:00AM-11:00AM (Hybrid Online/In-Person) Presentation: Biobehavioral Network Modeling for Public Health Policymaking presented by Dr. Aditya Khanna, Assistant Professor of Behavioral and Social Sciences

Location: Digital Scholarship Lab (Room 137) Rockefeller Library (10 Prospect St.)

This talk will open with an overview of the scope and utility of network modeling in public health, and describe two recent application projects. The first is on HIV transmission among Black men who have sex with men (MSM) in Chicago, and ongoing efforts to formulate the Getting to Zero HIV Elimination policy in the State of Illinois. The second part of the talk will focus on using simulation modeling to understand the impact of incarceration on smoking and heavy alcohol use in the social networks of justice involved persons, and the downstream connections to risk of cardiovascular disease.

Snacks will be provided.

10:00AM-11:00AM In-Person Workshop: Intro to US Census Data with data.census.gov presented by Frank Donnelly, Head of GIS and Data Services (University Library)

Location: Sciences Library 3rd Floor Conference Room (201 Thayer St.)

In this introductory presentation and workshop, you will learn how census data is created and structured, with specific details about the decennial census and the American Community Survey. We will cover how to access and retrieve current summary data from data.census.gov.

11:00AM-12:00PM (Hybrid Online/In-Person) Presentation: Archives, Big Data, Surveys, and Interviews: Taking in the Community presented by Jonathon Acosta (Sociology)

Location: Digital Scholarship Lab (Room 137) Rockefeller Library (10 Prospect St.)

This presentation will review the data available and mixed methods applied to conduct a contemporary community study. Data sources include released census data, state archives, municipal archives, in-depth interviews, household surveys, HR records, and others. These data are in the process of being woven together to present what can be described, in the words of Marcus Anthony Hunter (2013), as a historical ethnography. The presenter will describe how he filled gaps in available data and created original datasets that will be provided to local officials for historical presentation and preservation.

Snacks will be provided.

12:00PM-1:00PM Online Workshop: Cleaning Data with OpenRefine presented by Kelsey Sawyer, Biomedical and Life Sciences Librarian

This online workshop will cover the basics of using OpenRefine, a free open source tool, to clean your messy spreadsheets and data in a methodical and reproducible way. Download in advance at https://openrefine.org/

2:00PM-3:00PM Online Presentation: The Opioid Crisis: Disrupting the Status Quo With the Healing Communities Study presented by Sharon Walsh, PhD (Hosted by NIMH)

During this lecture, Sharon L. Walsh, Ph.D., will discuss how the HEALing Communities Study (HCS) is testing the prevention and treatment of opioid misuse in select communities hard hit by the opioid crisis. Dr. Walsh will describe how the HCS has begun to expand access to evidence-based care, improve data availability and timeliness, address social determinants of health, reduce stigma through public health communications campaigns, and modify relevant policies.

3:00PM-5:00PM In-person workshop: Avoiding Burnout

Sponsors: Office of University Postdoctoral Affairs (OUPA) and the Carney Institute for Brain Science as part of the Carney Institute’s Advancing Research Careers (ARC) program (R25NS124530). Location: Carney Institute for Brain Science (164 Angell Street, 4th Floor, Providence, RI 02906) Room: Innovation Zone

“Avoiding Burnout” is a workshop intended to help early-career academic researchers learn how to identify and prevent burnout. Kelly Holder, PhD, Chief Wellness Officer, Warren Alpert Medical School, will lead the workshop. This event is co-sponsored by the Office of University Postdoctoral Affairs (OUPA) and the Carney Institute for Brain Science as part of the Carney Institute’s Advancing Research Careers (ARC) program (R25NS124530).

Light refreshments will be provided, and the event will last about 90 minutes.

Target Audience: This event is designed for early career scholars, including Carney ARC scholars, senior postdoctoral scholars at Brown, and junior faculty members at Brown who have recently transitioned from postdoctoral appointments.

Wednesday, February 15th, 2023

9:30AM-12:00PM Online Workshop for Staff: Introduction to Cognos Analytics for New Users presented by Wendi Lewis (OIT Business Intelligence Team)

In this hands-on training for staff, you’ll learn to take advantage of the features of Brown’s powerful reporting tool, Cognos Analytics. This class is ideal for new Cognos Analytics users.

12:00PM-1:00PM In-Person Presentation: No History No Peace: Curating the Papers of Mumia Abu-Jamal and Johanna Fernández ’93 through the Pembroke Center Partnership presented by Mary Murphy, the Nancy L. Buc ’65 LLD’94 hon Pembroke Center Archivist

Location: Rockefeller Library (10 Prospect Street), Room 137 Digital Scholarship Lab (DSL) 

Set in the shadows of COVID-19 and the tragic murder of George Floyd, the Pembroke Center Archive embarked on a mission to preserve the papers of prisoner Mumia Abu-Jamal and scholar/advocate Johanna Fernández ’93. The Archive functions as a curatorial front door for Brown Library special collections and completed this herculean effort on behalf of and in partnership with the John Hay Library, as well as the Center for the Study of Slavery and Justice, and the Center for the Study of Race and Ethnicity. Pembroke Center curator Mary Murphy joins us to tell the story and share early finds from the Abu-Jamal collection, which is the largest of its kind ever to be acquired by a US research Library.

1:00PM-2:00PM Online Presentation: Alphabet Soup Reheated: An Overview and Update on Privacy Laws and Regulations in the U.S. and Abroad presented by Michael Grabo, Nicole Picard, and Zac Pencikowski, Associate General Counsel Team, Office of General Counsel

Curious about privacy laws that impact your office, your research, your work, or your students? Have you always wondered what these and other acronyms stand for: FERPA, GDPR, PIPL? This presentation will answer these questions and more by providing an overview of some of the key privacy laws that affect Brown University and its community. It will also offer interesting recent updates on these laws and their impact.

1:00PM-2:00PM Online Workshop: Creating Data Management Plans with DMPTool

Hosted by NIH National Library of Medicine

The DMPTool is a free tool that walks users through creating comprehensive data management plans. This webinar will guide attendees through data management plan basics, creating a DMPTool profile, and exploring available templates and planning resources.

The DMPTool is a great resource for building data management plans for grant applications, especially considering that starting in January 2023 the NIH will require funded researchers to submit a plan outlining how scientific data from their research will be managed and shared.

3:00PM-4:00PM Online Presentation: Dodgy Data, Dodgy Science: Research Misconduct and the Ethics of Data presented by Jules Blyth (OVPR)

Description: Science is a collaborative activity, and very often relies on shared data. But the sharing of research data requires trust that what is being shared is accurate and reliable. What happens if collaborators discover questionable data? This session looks at problematic research data and discusses when there may be Research Misconduct – defined as falsification, fabrication, and/or plagiarism of research data. Attendees will discuss cases of Research Misconduct and learn how Research Misconduct is investigated at Brown. Attendees will also get an inside look at more recent trends of how questionable data are brought to Brown’s attention.

5:00PM-6:00PM In-Person Presentation: Enterra Solutions & Massive Dynamics Information Session (Sponsored by CareerLAB) Location: CareerLAB 1st Floor Event Space

We are not waiting for the next wave…. We are creating it. Please come join us to learn more about Enterra Solutions and it’s partnering company, Massive Dynamics. We are leading the way in Autonomous Decision Science™, helping top brands operate smarter by finding higher meaning in their data. Enterra and Massive Dynamics automate a new way of problem-solving and decision-making, providing data-driven analytics and insights that help companies discover: Innovative product development opportunities; Heightened consumer insights; More exact targeted marketing; Improved growth strategies; and Intelligent demand and supply­ chain planning We are looking for strong problem solvers – people with a range of experiences that have a strong interest in or are studying data science, computer science, engineering, linguistics/ontology.

Thursday, February 16th, 2023

10:00AM-10:45AM Online Workshop: Visualize Some Data presented by Doug Joubert

Hosted by the NIH Office of Research Services

This session will focus on making a plot using ggplot. ggplot is a part of the tidyverse, a collection of R packages designed for data science. After a short demo, participants will break into groups to work on a mini-challenge. Participants must install R, RStudio, and the tidyverse package before this session so they can follow along with the instructor and participate in the breakout rooms.

11:00AM-12:00PM Online Presentation: Carney Institute of Brain Science Methods Meetup: Electronic Health Records

Join the Carney Institute for Brain Science, in conjunction with Love Data Week, for a Carney Methods Meetup featuring Elizabeth S. Chen, Interim Director of the Center for Biomedical Informatics, Associate Professor of Medical Science, and Associate Professor of Health Services, Policy and Practice, and Associate Professor of Health Services, Policy and Practice, and Karen Crowley, Manager of Health Informatics and Data Science in the Center for Biomedical Informatics. They will discuss methods for using Electronic Health Records (EHR) in brain science research.

Carney Methods Meetups are informal gatherings focused on methods for brain science, moderated by Jason Ritt, Carney’s scientific director of quantitative neuroscience. Videos and notes from [previous Meetups](https://www.brown.edu/carney/news-events/carney-methods-meetups) are available on the [Carney Institute](https://www.brown.edu/carney/) website.

Zoom only:

https://brown.zoom.us/j/97859986393?pwd=eFFreGJoRU9ibGtKV0s5WEJFdWkwQT09

Meeting ID: 978 5998 6393

Passcode: 451768

12:00PM-1:00PM (Hybrid In-Person/Online Presentation) Lunch and Learn: Building Data Towards Sex Worker and Migrant Worker Justice presented by Prof. Elena Shih (American Studies), co-sponsored with the Office of the Vice President for Research Diversity and Inclusion Action Committee (OVPR DIAC)

Location: South Street Landing, 4th Floor Multipurpose Room. You will be sent a google invite once registered for this event. Please reply with in person or remote. Lunch provided to in person attendees.

In 2015, a Human Trafficking Research Cluster was established through Brown’s Center for the Study of Slavery and Justice. As its founder and director, Elena Shih will discuss two different community based research initiatives undertaken at the center: with Red Canary Song, a New York based sex worker rights organization, and with Federation of Garment Workers Myanmar, a Yangon based feminist labor union. Shih will discuss the potential and perils of community based work with criminalized populations, centering on how to achieve goals of justice in the face of the persistent policing of racialized poverty.

Friday, February 17th, 2023

9:00AM-2:00PM (Hybrid In-Person/Online) Mini-Summit: AI For Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Response: Its Human Element (sponsored by Center for Human Rights and Humanitarian Studies(Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs) Location: Online via Zoom and in-person in the Joukowsky Forum, Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs (111 Thayer St.)

AI can play an important role in Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Response (HADR). To ensure AI’s success on such use cases (and for all users), it is critical to consider its human element: the different stakeholders in the HADR environment, their distinct goals, pain points, and design needs, how they’ll interact with AI technologies in the field, how to apply AI technologies fairly and ethically, and more. Put differently, we must emphasize human-centered design, think deeply about human computer interaction, and practice responsible AI. This half-day mini summit will feature group discussion as well as speakers from academia, government, military, NGOs, and the technology sector.

11:00AM-12:15PM In-Person Presentation: Recent Progress on Q^k Spectral Element Method: Accuracy, Monotonicity and Applications on Compressible Navier-Stokes equations presented by Dr. Xiangxiong Zhang (Purdue). (Sponsored by Division of Applied Mathematics Scientific Computing Seminar) Location: 170 Hope Street, Room 108

Spectral element methods usually refer to finite element methods with high order polynomial basis. The Q^k spectral element method has been a popular high order method for solving second order PDEs, e.g., wave equations, for more than three decades, obtained by continuous finite element method with tenor product polynomial of degree k basis and with at least (k+1)-point Gauss-Lobatto quadrature. In this talk, I will present some brand new results of this classical scheme, including its accuracy, monotonicity (stability), and examples of using monotonicity to construct high order accurate bound (or positivity) preserving schemes in various applications including the Allen-Cahn equation coupled with an incompressible velocity field, Keller-Segel equation for chemotaxis, nonlinear eigenvalue problem for Gross–Pitaevskii equation, and especially compressible Navier-Stokes equations.

12:00PM-1:00PM Online Workshop: Wikidata for Scholarly Profiles presented by Mairelys Lemus-Rojas, Head of Open Metadata Production and Initiative (University Library)

Wikidata—a structured linked data knowledge base serving as a data hub for the Wikimedia ecosystem and beyond—provides an open and multilingual platform accessible across the globe. Wikidata releases its data under an open license which enables reuse and facilitates an environment where scholarly data can be curated collaboratively. This session will provide an introduction to Wikidata and its role within the Wikimedia ecosystem. Participants will be able to make edits in Wikidata as well as learn about external tools that can be used to contribute data and render scholarly profiles.

12:00PM-1:00PM (Hybrid Online/In-Person) Presentation: Health Data as the Foundation for Population Health presented by Neil Sarkar and Scott Young (Brown Center for Biomedical Informatics, Rhode Island Quality Institute) Location: Alpert Medical School, Room 170 Virtual option: https://brown.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJ0tdeyrrjkpHN2yLNWaYTOBxVEtRqcbW4-s

Join us on Friday, February 17, 2023 at Noon for a presentation on “Health Data as the Foundation for Population Health” by the Rhode Island Quality Institute. Neil Sarkar, PhD, MLIS, FACMI, ACHIP (President and CEO) and Scott Young, MHA (Senior Director of Strategy & Growth) will provide an introduction to health information exchanges (HIEs) and discuss how health data across an entire healthcare ecosystem can enable population health insights. Held during Love Data Week 2023, this seminar is part of BCBI’s Health Informatics Seminar Series that has a theme of “Leveraging a Statewide Health Information Exchange for Advancing Population Health Research” in Spring 2023. 

12:00PM-1:30PM Online Presentation: LeaRRn Grand Rounds: Designing Data Inputs that Matter: Building An Infrastructure in a Real-World Learning Health System presented by Claire Kalpakjian, PhD, MS (sponsored by LeaRRn: Learning Health Systems Rehabilitation Research Network)

Meaningful and relevant data are essential for any learning health system. Learning communities benefit from support in selecting and implementing data inputs – clinical assessment and documentation, patient-reported measures – that align with their learning goals. This talk will describe the development of an infrastructure to support the design and practical application of data inputs in medical rehabilitation that power cycles of learning to improve care. See other LeaRRn events here.

2:00PM-3:00PM Online Presentation: Wikipedia Translation Project presented by Mairelys Lemus-Rojas, Patricia Figueroa, Prof. Patricia Sobral and Joe Silva (Portuguese and Brazilian Studies)

Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia, is available in over 300 languages and has a global community of users. However, topics are not available in every language which is critical for achieving knowledge equity. Despite the efforts of the global community of users to help bridge the gender divide, women biographies in the Portuguese-language version of Wikipedia still account for less than 20% of all biographies. In this session, we will share our experience with the Wikipedia Translation Project. The project mainly focused on improving the coverage of women biographies in the Portuguese-language version of Wikipedia by translating existing articles from English to Portuguese. Through this project, students were able to practice their translation skills while also contributing toward knowledge equity in the world’s largest and most consulted repository of human knowledge.

3:00PM-4:00PM In-person Data & Donuts, hosted by DSI and DSI DUG Location: Room 335, 164 Angell St., Providence, RI 02912 

Join the DSI at 12:00 pm on Friday, February 17 for a special “Love Data Week” Data & Donuts! This week, we welcome Peter Hull, Groos Family Assistant Professor of Economics. 

The format of this series allows colleagues to connect informally and will feature short talks by Brown faculty and data scientists on research or campus resources related to data science.

These talks are open to students, faculty, and staff of all levels with an interest in data science and are set up as a community roundtable to engage everyone.

Gourmet donuts, fruit, and coffee will be served!

Monday, February 14, 2022

10:00am – 11:00am (Remote online/Open to the public) Keynote Address: “Data Creation and Propagation: Schooling Mode in COVID-19” 

Speaker: Dr. Emily Oster, Brown University Professor of Economics

This talk will discuss Dr. Oster’s work collecting and making available data on schools and COVID-19. Topics include the need for good data and why it can be hard to create.

11:00am – 12:00pm (Remote online/Limited to the Brown University community) Presentation: “Too Good to Be True?: Behind the Scenes of Data Fabrication/Falsification Reviews”

Speaker: Keri Godin, Senior Director, Office of Research Integrity 

Ever wonder what goes on behind the scenes of a research misconduct review? This interactive session lifts the curtain on how Brown assesses potential “FFP” – falsification or fabrication of research data and plagiarism. Attendees will be encouraged to assess and identify potentially problematic research data, learn about ways to mitigate the risks of FFP, and get an inside look at more recent trends in how questionable data are brought to Brown’s attention.

12:00pm – 1:00pm (Remote online/Open to the public) Workshop: “Recommended Practices for Writing Data Management & Sharing Plans”

Instructor: Andrew Creamer, Scientific Data Management Specialist, Brown Library

This workshop will introduce users to the DMPTool and resources available at Brown to support their writing and executing their data management and sharing plans as well as data curation recommended practices for managing research data to help make your research products discoverable and facilitate reuse and attribution.

2:00pm – 3:00pm (Remote online/Open to the public) Workshop: “Gathering and Analyzing Twitter Data For Research” 

Instructor: Dr. Ashley Champagne, Head, Brown University Library Center for Digital Scholarship

This workshop covers the use of gathering Twitter datasets using the Twitter API and other resources. Participants will be able to gather a historical Twitter dataset and set up a script to gather Twitter data in real-time as well as learn about a few resources to analyze those Tweets. 

Tuesday, February 15, 2022

10:00am – 11:00 am (Remote online/Open to the public) Presentation: “Duplicates and Dupes: Combating Fraudulent Responses in Online Surveys“

Speaker: Stephanie Obodda, Assistant Director, Digital Innovation Engineering Office of Information Technology

Online surveys allow researchers to quickly collect data and access populations that would be difficult to otherwise reach. But they’re also easy targets for fraud – scammers submit fraudulent responses, whether manually or using bots, in an attempt to gain financial incentives paid to participants. We’ll talk about general methods for discouraging and identifying fraud, as well as look at related features of Brown’s survey tool, Qualtrics.

1:30pm – 2:30pm (Remote online/Open to the public) Presentation: “Preparing for the NIH Data Management and Sharing Policy”

Speakers: Taunton Paine and Cindy Danielson, National Institutes of Health

NIH has issued a new Final NIH Policy for Data Management and Sharing, which expects NIH-funded researchers to prospectively submit a plan outlining how scientific data from their research will be managed and shared.  On January 25, 2023, the new policy will come into effect for new and competing awards, and will replace the 2003 NIH Data Sharing Policy. Mr. Taunton Paine and Dr. Cindy Danielson from the NIH will explain this new policy and answer any questions you may have.  We recommend attending Wednesday’s “Preparing Researchers for the NIH Data Management & Sharing Policy: Putting Policy into Practice” session to continue the conversation of how Brown is planning to support researchers in the transition to the new policy.

3:00pm – 4:00pm (Remote online/Limited to the Brown University community) Presentation: “Finding Common Ground: The Importance of Research Contracting”

Speaker: Jennifer Welch, Esq., Director of Research Contracting; Megan Snell, Research Contract Administrator, OVPR.

Have you been told you need an agreement or contract in connection with your research? Does this question fill you with a sense of dread? Join the office of Research Contracting while we dispel the myth that legal agreements are onerous during a discussion about data use agreements, material transfer agreements, and other contracts related to research.

4:00pm – 5:30pm (In-person/Limited to the Brown University community) Data Bytes Taco Tuesday Trivia Night Co-sponsored by OVPR and University Library

Feel overwhelmed by the acronyms of campus units offering data services – ORI, CCV, OIT, MML, CDS, CLEAR? In celebration of Love Data Week, come by the Campus Center’s Petteruti Lounge and enjoy some drinks, tacos, and trivia, and get a chance to meet with and hear from representatives of these units to find out what services they have on offer and how they can support your research. 

Nota bene: The administration has lifted moratorium on departmental in-person meal gatherings as of 2/11 so this event will be in-person

Wednesday, February 16, 2022

10:00am – 11:00am (Remote online/Limited to COBRE affiliates and the Brown University community) Presentation: “Preparing Researchers for the NIH Data Management & Sharing Policy: Putting Policy into Practice” Co-sponsored with COBRE/Data and Research Methods Core (DRM)

Speakers: Andrew Creamer, Arielle Nitenson, Ita Irizarry, Robert Miranda

The new NIH Policy on Data Management and Sharing goes into effect on January 25, 2023. How are the departments at Brown that support researchers preparing for this new policy? How should researchers prepare for changes in proposal development, data collection, and depositing data? How will the policy impact research, including updating documentation for informed consent, new pre- and post-award engagement with NIH repositories, and updated timelines for data preparation and depositing? Resources will be shared such as templates to help researchers with writing plans, tools for managing their data throughout a project, and sharing data during and after a project closes. This session is a follow-up to Tuesday’s “Preparing for the NIH Data Management and Sharing Policy” session.

11:00am – 12:00pm (Remote online/Open to the public) Workshop: “Intro to US Census Data with data.census.gov”

Instructor: Frank Donnelly, Geospatial Information Services and Data Librarian, Center for Library Exploration & Research, University Library

In this introductory presentation and workshop, you will learn how census data is created and structured, with specific details about three population datasets: the decennial census, American Community Survey, and population estimates. We will cover how to access and retrieve current summary data from data.census.gov.

1:00pm – 2:00pm (Remote online/Open to the public) Presentation: “Measuring Water Quality in the Forgotten Corridor: Case Study of Jackson, Mississippi” Co-sponsored with the Office of the Vice President for Research Diversity and Inclusion Action Committee (DIAC)

Speaker: Dr. Erica Walker, Assistant Professor of Epidemiology, School of Public Health 

Dr. Erica Walker is broadly interested in understanding the impact of multiple physical and chemical exposures on community health, and specifically working in areas impacted by deep inequalities and environmental injustices. In response to Greater Jackson’s massive water quality issues, she is currently working on and will discuss her citizen-driven, environmental justice water project in Greater Jackson which includes looking at boiled water notices; the development of a boiled water vulnerability and risk index; and the development of a citizen-driven tap water testing drive.

2:00pm – 3:00pm (Remote online/Limited to the Brown University community) IRB Panel: “IRB Myth Busting”

Panelists: Michael Worden, PhD – IRB Chair, Assistant Professor of Neuroscience (Research), Patricia Cioe, PhD – IRB Vice Chair, Associate Professor of Behavioral and Social Sciences, Mark Dieterich – Non-Scientific Member, Chief Information Security Officer, Mascha van ‘t Wout-Frank, PhD – Scientific Member, Associate Professor of Psychiatry and Human Behavior (Research)

Moderator: Keri Godin – Senior Director, Office of Research Integrity

Do you know who sits on Brown’s IRB? Are you curious why they do what they do? Join IRB members to discuss common misconceptions about the board, how the false impression of the IRB as the “gatekeeper” to approval slows the review process, and the valuable purpose it serves in the research community.

2:00pm – 2:30pm (Remote online/Open to the public) Data Science Initiative Fair February: Social Justice and Health presentation “Social Disadvantage and Life Expectancy in India”

Speaker: Aashish Gupta, Harvard

India has one of the most rigid systems of social stratification in the world, yet little is known about how this system has shaped life expectancy in the country. This talk presents evidence from multiple related papers using large-scale survey data that mortality disparities in India are large, persistent, can be observed across the life course, and cannot be explained by differences in economic status between marginalized social groups and privileged social groups. These findings reveal a pressing need for explicitly challenging social inequalities in health in India.

2:30pm – 3:00pm (Remote online/Open to the public) Data Science Initiative Fair February: Social Justice and Health presentation “Returns from an Open Data Approach: India, the Pandemic, and Beyond”

Speaker: Aditi Bhowmick, Development Data Lab

Fair February is an interdepartmental, three-week symposium hosted annually by the Data Science Initiative. Our goal is to bring together researchers from different areas of expertise to discuss issues with computation and society.

3:00pm – 3:45pm (Remote online/Open to the public) Presentation: “International Collaborations: avoiding common pitfalls”

Speakers: Torrey Truszkowski, Jules Blyth, Melissa Medeiros, Michael Liu

International collaborations and scholarship are central to the advancement of science. Working collaboratively with colleagues in other countries can push your own research forward and benefit everyone. But engaging in international collaborations comes with additional responsibilities, such as expanded disclosure requirements, compliance with export control laws, data sharing, and material transfer policies. The good news is that Brown’s Central Research Administration can help you navigate this. Come and join the Office of Research Integrity and the Office of Sponsored Projects as they discuss how to collaborate internationally without getting into trouble. Bring your questions.

4:00pm – 5:00pm (Remote online/Open to the public) Presentation: “Redefining Interpretability and Replication in Multi-Ancestry Genome-wide Association Studies”

Speaker: Lorin Crawford, Ph.D., Senior Researcher, Microsoft Research New England RGSS Assistant Professor of Biostatistics, Center for Computational Molecular Biology, Brown University

Since 2005, genome-wide association (GWA) datasets have been largely biased toward sampling European ancestry individuals, and recent studies have shown that GWA results estimated from self-identified European individuals are not transferable to non-European individuals due to various confounding challenges. In this talk, we will demonstrate that enrichment analyses which aggregate SNP-level association statistics at multiple genomic scales—from genes to genomic regions and pathways—have been underutilized in the GWA era and can generate biologically interpretable hypotheses regarding the genetic basis of complex trait architecture. In the first half of the presentation, we illustrate examples of the robust associations generated by enrichment analyses while studying 25 continuous traits assayed in diverse self-identified human ancestries from the UK Biobank, the Biobank Japan, and the PAGE consortium. In the second half, we will present novel probabilistic machine learning frameworks which allow researchers to simultaneously perform (i) fine-mapping with SNPs and (ii) enrichment analyses with SNP-sets on complex traits. Using a subset of individuals from the UK Biobank, we show that these models can replicate known associations that previously required functional validation.

Thursday, February 17, 2022

10:00am – 11:00am (Remote online/Open to the public) Workshop: “Pattern matching and data cleaning using Regular Expressions”

Instructor: Patrick Rashleigh, Data Visualization Coordinator, Center for Digital Scholarship, Brown University Library

Okay, you know how to do search and replace in Word. But what if you need to look for word variants? Or numbers of unknown length and format? What if you need to do a search-and-replace to clean up some data that involves something more complicated than just replace X with Y? Regular expressions are a concise way of doing this kind of complex pattern matching, and they are wonderfully useful for cleaning data (numeric and textual), text mining, and such. A super-useful tool to keep in your (digital) back pocket!

10:30am – 11:00am (Remote online/Open to the public) Data Science Initiative Fair February: Social Justice and Health Presentation “TBD”

Speaker: Monia Chopra, MD, Rheumatology Fellow, Rhode Island Hospital and Roger Williams Medical Center

Fair February is an interdepartmental, three-week symposium hosted annually by the Data Science Initiative. Our goal is to bring together researchers from different areas of expertise to discuss issues with computation and society.

11:00am – 11:30am (Remote online/Open to the public) Data Science Initiative Fair February: Social Justice and Health Presentation “From Doctors’ Offices to Homes: Impacts of Home Pregnancy Test Availability”

Speaker: Chien-Tzu Cheng, Ph.D. Candidate, Economics, Brown University

Home pregnancy tests first became available in the US local drugstores at the end of 1977, providing private, fast, and accurate pregnancy confirmation. Using county-level drugstore availability to approximate the home pregnancy test availability, this talk examines the impacts on fertility rates, early prenatal care, and female education outcomes. In an event study, it was found that significant trend breaks in fertility rates after 1977 among women aged 15-29 who had access to drugstores; the effects are the strongest among women aged 15-19. Evidence suggests that access to abortion services played a part in explaining the trend breaks among this population. No impact was detected on early prenatal care adoption trends. Furthermore, high school dropouts of the cohort which entered high school right after 1977 significantly declined by 6.7% in areas with greater access to abortion providers.

11:30am – 12:00pm (Remote online/Open to the public) Data Science Initiative Fair February: Social Justice and Health Presentation “TBD”

Speaker: Andrew Huang, Ph.D. Candidate, Health Services, Policy and Practice, Brown University

Fair February is an interdepartmental, three-week symposium hosted annually by the Data Science Initiative. Our goal is to bring together researchers from different areas of expertise to discuss issues with computation and society.

12:00pm – 1:00pm (Remote online/Limited to the Brown University community) Presentation: “Alphabet Soup: Privacy Laws and Regulations in the US and Abroad“

Speakers: Nicole Picard, Michael Grabo, and Zac Pencikowski; Associate General Counsel; Office of General Counsel

Curious about privacy laws that impact your office, your research, your work, or your students?  Have you always wondered what these and other acronyms stand for: FERPA, GDPR, PIPL?  This presentation will answer these questions and more by providing an overview of some of the key privacy laws that affect Brown University and its community.

1:00pm – 2:00pm (Remote online/Limited to the Brown University community) Carney Methods Meetup: “Biomarker estimation in imaging”

Speaker: Ani Eloyan, Assistant Professor of Biostatistics 

Join the Carney Institute for Brain Science, in conjunction with Love Data Week, for a Carney Methods Meetup featuring Professor Ani Eloyan, who will discuss methods for defining and estimating clinically relevant biomarkers, such as from longitudinal fMRI. Carney Methods Meetups are informal gatherings focused on methods for brain science, moderated by Jason Ritt, Carney’s scientific director of quantitative neuroscience. Videos and notes from previous Meetups are available on the Carney Institute website.

1:00pm – 2:00pm (Remote online/Open to the public) Data Science Initiative Fair February: Social Justice and Health Presentation “Electronic Health Portal Usage Among Non-English Speakers and Older Adults”

Speakers: Neenu Sukumaran, MD Internal Medicine Resident, Roger Williams Medical Center

Electronic Health Portals (EHPs) are valuable resources for patients and healthcare providers. They augment communication in a privacy-protected, healthcare setting. This is crucial in Rheumatology, where patients are managed long term. EHP use has been linked to improved patient outcomes and reduced healthcare costs. Our goal was to identify active users of EHPs from a single community-academic rheumatology practice in Providence, RI, and understand the factors driving individuals to use EHP, or any barriers that may prevent them from using it.

2:00pm – 3:00pm (Remote online/Open to the public) Presentation: “Hijacking Hashtags During Covid-19: The Case of #MyBodyMyChoice” Co-sponsored with the Brown University Library Center for Digital Scholarship

Speakers: Ashley Champagne, Head, Digital Scholarship Project Planning; Shahrzad Haddadan, Postdoctoral Researcher in Computer Science; Cristina Menghini, Postdoctoral Researcher in Computer Science; Sohini Ramachandran, Professor of Biology, Co-Director of Graduate Studies for the Center of Computational Molecular Biology, Director of the Center for Computational Molecular Biology, Director of Data Science, Professor of Computer Science; Bjorn Sandstede, Professor of Applied Mathematics; Justin Uhr, Senior Library Technologist

Our presentation shares results on how the meaning of the hashtag #MyBodyMyChoice changed during the pandemic. This hashtag was associated with reproductive rights before the pandemic; the hashtag expanded to encompass anti-vaccine and anti-mask messages during the pandemic. In our talk, we share results of how the hashtag evolved by looking at popularity, compositions, and users’ behaviors to disseminate content. Moreover, to put these analyses in perspective, we compare how users’ hash-jacked #MyBodyMyChoice to some other hashtags which were famously hash-jacked during the soccer world cup of 2014.

2:00pm – 5:00pm (Remote online/Open to the public) IDeA-CTR N3C Investigator Engagement Event: Jumpstarting Access to Clinical Data for COVID-19 Research

Speakers: Keynote Presentation by Christopher Chute, MD, DrPH (Johns Hopkins University), Opening Remarks by Sally Hodder, MD (West Virginia University) and Clifford Rosen, MD (Maine Medical Center Research Institute)

This event will introduce IDeA-CTR members to the National COVID Cohort Collaborative (N3C). The N3C aims to unite COVID-19 data, enabling innovative machine learning and statistical analyses that require a large amount of data – more than is available in any given institution. The goal is to enable rapid collaboration among clinicians, researchers, and data scientists to identify treatments, specialize care, and to reduce the overall severity of COVID-19.

3:00pm – 4:00pm (Remote online/Open to the public) Presentation: “Collective Cognition: Data About How Groups Think”

Speakers: Steven Sloman, PhD – Professor of Cognitive, Linguistic and Psychological Sciences (CLPS), Nat Rabb – Project Manager, The Policy Lab, Semir Tatlidil – Graduate Student, CLPS, Babak Hemmatian, PhD – Beckman Postdoctoral Fellow, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Victoria Halewicz – Graduate Student, CLPS

Data from psychology labs suggests that human beings are ignorant, biased, overly emotional, suggestible, overconfident, poor at assessing their own knowledge, and only moderately good at assessing their own abilities. Yet we’ve sent robots to Mars, created vaccines, built spectacular buildings, sequenced the human genome, and generated a stupefying corpus of cultural works. How do we do it? One possibility is that the classic patterns of findings are incomplete or flawed, that people’s cognitive and emotional capacities have been unfairly maligned. We explore a different reason: Human beings do these incredible things through collaboration and outsourcing, thus overcoming individual shortcomings. Given our extraordinary success, individual cognition should be thought of as a component in a larger system of collective human activity rather than an end in itself. We discuss various forms of data that we have collected in pursuit of this hypothesis.

3:00pm – 4:00pm (Remote online/Open to the public) Workshop: “Promoting Good Data Management with LabArchives Electronic Lab Notebooks”

Instructor: Hannah Clark, LabArchives Enterprise Client Services

This workshop is an overview of Brown’s LabArchives electronic notebook accounts that allow PIs and individuals to create, store, and access electronic lab notebooks in the cloud. LabArchives offers unlimited storage. PIs can create notebooks for lab members so they can retain copies in the case any personnel departs. Brown also subscribes to the Classroom Edition for instructors in lab courses to create a course notebook, assign students and TAs to sections, provide each student with their individual copy of the course notebook, and create and grade assignments.

4:00pm – 6:30pm Film Screening: “Coded Bias” (Limited to the Brown University community/In-person screening in Friedman Hall Room 108 at 4:00 pm followed by a director Q&A at 5:30 pm remote over Zoom) sponsored by Love Data Week, OVPR, the Library, Brown’s AI Initiative and DSI

Director: Shalini Kantayya

When MIT Media Lab researcher Joy Buolamwini discovers that many facial recognition technologies misclassify women and darker-skinned faces, she is compelled to investigate further and start the Algorithmic Justice League. It turns out that artificial intelligence, which was defined by a homogeneous group of men, is not neutral. What Buolamwini learns about widespread bias in algorithms drives her to push the U.S. government to create the first-ever legislation to counter the far-reaching dangers of bias in a technology that is steadily encroaching on our lives. Centering on the voices of women leading the charge to ensure our civil rights are protected, Coded Bias asks two key questions: what is the impact of Artificial Intelligence’s increasing role in governing our liberties? And what are the consequences for people stuck in the crosshairs due to their race, color, and gender? https://www.wmm.com/catalog/film/coded-bias/

Friday, February 18, 2022

10:00am – 11:00am (Remote online/Open to the public) Presentation: “Demystifying Indigenous Enslavement” Co-sponsored with the Brown University Library Center for Digital Scholarship

Speakers: Dr. Linford D. Fisher, Associate Professor of History, and Zoe Zimmermann, Research Coordinator

Since 2016, the Stolen Relations: Recovering Stories of Indigenous Enslavement in the Americas project has been gathering and documenting as many instances as possible of Indigenous enslavement in the Americas between 1492 and 1900 (and beyond, where relevant). The project seeks to recover from the archives the stories of enslaved individuals to make them available to tribal communities and collaboratively interpret them for the wider public. Indigenous enslavement is not as immediately apparent as African slavery for a variety of reasons, one of which is that Indigenous people of mixed ancestry were not historically seen as Indigenous. The colonial powers’ used racial terms to minimize or erase Indigeneity in order to make individuals more enslavable. This presentation will share how our team is finding and cataloging instances of Indigenous enslavement in order to illuminate and understand the role the enslavement of Indigenous peoples played in settler colonialism.

11:00am – 12:00pm (Remote online/Limited to the Brown University community) Presentation: “How Fast Is Expedited Review?: Debunking Common Misconceptions About Human Subjects Research”

Panelists: Alana Chetlen – IRB Specialist II, Office of Research Integrity (ORI), Vanessa Sherman – IRB Specialist, ORI, Sheila Vandal -IRB Collaborative Research Manager, ORI

Don’t let the IRB submission and review process overwhelm you! Seasoned researchers or first-time submitters, come learn about Brown’s human subject research policies, forms, and procedures. Demystify the submission and review process with tips to a smoother approval and avoid frustrating delays.

12:00pm – 1:00pm (Remote online/Open to the public) Presentation: “Discriminating Data: A Conversation with Wendy Chun” sponsored by Cogut Institute for the Humanities

Speaker: Dr. Wendy Chun, Canada 150 Research Chair in New Media in the School of Communication and Director Digital Democracies Institute, Simon Fraser University

In Discriminating Data (MIT Press, 2021), Wendy Hui Kyong Chun reveals how polarization is a goal — not an error — within big data and machine learning. These methods, she argues, encode segregation, eugenics, and identity politics through their default assumptions and conditions. Correlation, which grounds big data’s predictive potential, stems from twentieth-century eugenic attempts to “breed” a better future. Recommender systems foster angry clusters of sameness through homophily. Users are “trained” to become authentically predictable via a politics and technology of recognition. Machine learning and data analytics thus seek to disrupt the future by making disruption impossible.

1:00pm – 2:00pm (Remote online/Limited to the Brown University community) Presentation: “Measuring Structural Racism Using U.S. State Laws” Co-sponsored by the Brown University Library Department of Health and Biomedical Library Services and School of Public Health Department of Behavioral and Social Sciences

Speaker: Dr. Madina Agénor, Assistant Professor, Department of Behavioral and Social Sciences, Center for Health Promotion and Health Equity, School of Public Health

Public health research shows that structural racism–namely, the totality of ways in which societies foster racial inequities through mutually reinforcing systems of housing, education, employment, earnings, benefits, credit, media, health care, and criminal justice–adversely impacts the health of Black, Indigenous, and other people of color in the U.S. Critical Race Theory stresses that laws are a major driver of structural racism across U.S. social systems and institutions. Efforts to measure structural racism have increased in recent years; however, to date, no existing measure of structural racism has incorporated U.S. state laws that both explicitly and implicitly promote racism in U.S. society. In this talk, we will discuss opportunities for, as well as limitations of, measuring structural racism using U.S. state laws that drive racism in the employment, education, health care, and criminal legal systems, among others. 

3:00pm – 4:00pm (Remote online/Open to the public) Workshop: “Cleaning Data With Open Refine”

Instructor: Kelsey Sawyer, Biomedical & Life Sciences Librarian

This online workshop will cover the basics of using OpenRefine, a free open source tool, to clean your messy spreadsheets and data in a methodical and reproducible way.

Monday, February 8th, 2021

12-1 PM Researcher Talk: “Using Big Data to Understand Upward Mobility”

Dr. John N. Friedman, Professor of Economics and International and Public Affairs, will explore the ways in which big data can be used to understand economic inequality and the lack of social mobility in the US, and how policy may be able to help. 

1-1:45 PM CIS Workshop: “Protecting Brown’s Data: CIS Partnering with Brown Researchers”

Join Mark Dieterich, Director of IT Security, Linnea Wolfe, Assistant CIO of Infrastructure and Research Computing, and Mete Tunca, CIS’ Assistant Director of Research Services for an overview of CIS’ security and contract review processes that ensure appropriate protections are in place and requirements are met. The session will include a look at Brown’s data risk classification system and time for your questions.

2-3 PM OVPR IRB Workshop: “We’re Engaged! Pro Tips for a Successful Collaboration”

Sheila Vandal, IRB Manager, will introduce you to IRB Authorization Agreements (IAAs) for collaborative research. She will walk you through the steps of establishing a reliance agreement from determining engagement to navigating the submission process. You’ll leave with strategies for quicker turnaround times and realistic expectations for your study’s pending partnerships.

Tuesday, February 9th, 2021

9-10 AM OVPR ORI Workshop: “Data Sharing in the Age of Covid-19, Racial Disparities, and More” 

Are you curious about how Data Use Agreements (DUAs) are being used to facilitate research on today’s hot topics? Jen Welch, J.D. in OVPR’s Office of Research Integrity (ORI) will discuss DUAs Brown has signed for data related to research on topics such as COVID-19, the opioid crisis, and racial disparities.

10-11 AM Researcher Talk: “Using Data to Illuminate Health Disparities in Vulnerable Populations”

Dr. Vincent Mor, Professor of Medical Science, Florence Pirce Grant University Professor of Community Health in the School of Public Health, will discuss his project to test strategies to improve COVID-19 testing and vaccination in nursing home residents and staff. Dr. Neil Sarkar, President & CEO, Rhode Island Quality Institute; Associate Professor of Medical Science, Associate Professor of Health Services, Policy, and Practice, will discuss utilizing Rhode Island’s Health Information Exchange (HIE) to determine and develop approaches to address community and provider barriers that impact COVID-19 testing in Hispanic/Latinx populations.

12-1 PM OVPR ORI Workshop: “Best practices for international research collaborations”

Collaborating across the globe is more critical to scientific progress than ever, and also easier than ever thanks to online tools. Join OVPR Office of Research Integrity’s (ORI) Dr. Torrey Truszkowski and Associate Director, Juliane Blyth for a discussion about how to protect your data and ideas when shared internationally. We will also discuss how research data can range from non-restricted to highly restricted within the context of U.S. export control regulation, and what to look out for to ensure you and your collaborators do not run afoul of University policies and federal regulations.

2-3 PM Keynote Researcher Panel on Brown’s Love Data Week Theme: “Data: Delivering a Better Future”                                  

Dr. Ashish Kumar Jha, Dean of the School of Public Health and Professor of Health Services, Policy and Practice, and Dr. Megan L. Ranney, Associate Professor of Emergency Medicine, Assistant Dean of Brown Institute for Translational Sciences, Director of Brown Institute for Translational Sciences, and Associate Professor of Health Services, Policy and Practice, will present their perspectives on the role data has played in their work engaging the public and political leaders during the COVID-19 global pandemic as well as their respective research on pressing global and digital health issues facing society such as Dr. Ranney’s research on the gun violence epidemic in the United States.

Wednesday, February 10th, 2021

10-11 AM The Policy Lab Researcher Talk: “How can you accurately model data?

Over the past year, data modeling has become increasingly prominent in the news and everyday life, but how do we know that the data and predicted outcomes are correct? Join us for a discussion with prolific academic cryptographer Dr. Seny Kamara about how to accurately model data in unprecedented times, when typical assumptions are out the door and biases often skew algorithms and subsequent policy. Registration details soon!

12-12:45 PM Researcher Talk: “Extracting Information from Jail Web Sites with Machine Learning”

Dr. Stephen Bach, Assistant Professor of Computer Science, presents on his machine learning research and its applications. Researchers seeking to understand the U.S. criminal justice system suffer from a lack of comprehensive data sets. We are addressing this issue by using machine learning to extract useful information from public jail websites. A major challenge is that machine learning traditionally requires labeled training data, creating a circular dependency. Instead, our system for weakly supervised machine learning (called WISER) learns how to extract information via noisy, human-written rules. This process saves significant human development time, enabling us to tackle problems previously blocked by a lack of training data.

3-4 PM University Library Workshop: “Introduction to Using OpenRefine Software for Cleaning Your Data”

Kelsey Sawyer, Biomedical & Life Sciences Librarian and one of the Brown University Library’s certified Carpentries Instructors, will lead an introductory workshop on using OpenRefine software to clean data. No experience using the software is required. Download the open source software in advance for free from OpenRefine.org.

4-5 PM Data Science Initiative Fair February Talk: “Designing for Democracy: How to Build Community in Digital Environments”

From popping filter bubbles to dampening the spread of disinformation and extremism, scholars and practitioners alike have expended significant energy ‘fixing’ digital technologies—and the algorithms powering them—for democratic politics. But what, exactly, does democracy demand? In this talk, Dr. Jennifer Forestal, Assistant Professor of Political Science, Loyola University-Chicago, outlines the three “democratic affordances” required of digital technologies.

5:10-6 PM Data Science Initiative Fair February Talk: “Hate Speech on Social Media in India“

Aarushi Kalra, Ph.D. Candidate, Department of Economics, Brown University, shares a project bringing a novel dataset from ShareChat (a hugely popular content generation app in India) to launch an enquiry into the factors that lead to the production and propagation of online extreme speech, on platforms like WhatsApp. We wish to study the production and propagation of extreme speech against marginalized groups (like women and the Indian Muslim community) on WhatsApp, using ShareChat data. Given the immense popularity of WhatsApp and ShareChat, policy interventions that fight hate speech would help members of marginalized communities to access digital spaces where public opinion is formed.

Thursday, February 11th, 2021

10-11 AM OGC Workshop: “Everything You Wanted to Know about FERPA but were Afraid to Ask”

Please join the Office of the General Counsel (OGC) for a discussion on the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA). The discussion is open to anyone and is geared to those who have limited knowledge of FERPA. Please RSVP by sending an email to Sally Mitchell  sally_mitchell@brown.edu.

11-12 PM OVPR Research Development Workshop: “Out of Many, One: Finding the Right Funding Opportunity”

Join Kate Duggan, Research Development Specialist in OVPR’s Office of Research Development, to learn strategies for researchers to find and evaluate funding opportunities, with a focus on the grants.gov and SPIN databases. Learn where grant opportunities are listed, tips for refining your searches, how to pinpoint the opportunities that are most relevant to you, and how to assess whether they are a good fit.

12-1PM Advance-CTR Translational Research Seminar Series 

Hector Lopez-Vergara, PhD presents “Towards Testing the Cross-Cultural Validity of Dual-Process Models of Alcohol Use” and Vanessa Harwood, PhD, and Alisa Baron, PhD present “Neurobiological Markers of Language and Literacy in Bilingual Children”. The Advance-CTR Translational Research Seminar Series showcases clinical and translational research from across Rhode Island. Presentations, followed by feedback, allow presenters the opportunity to refine and strengthen their research. Seminars are held virtually on the second Thursday of each month

2-3 PM OVPR ORI Workshop: “Research Integrity in the Era of COVID-19”

Keri Godin, Senior Director, Office of Research Integrity (ORI) presents on Research Integrity in the Era of COVID-19. The COVID-19 pandemic presents unique challenges related to research integrity and heightened pressures that could lead to questionable research practices. This session will examine trends in COVID-19 related research in the current research environment and ways to mitigate risk of research misconduct.

3-4 PM Carney Institute Carney Methods Meetup: “Resources for Learning Data Science”

Join special guest Samuel Watson, Director of Graduate Studies, Data Science Initiative. Registration link soon!

Friday, February 12th, 2021

11-12 PM Environmental and Remote Technologies Lab Workshop: “Dashboards, Story Maps, and Experiences”

Lynn Carlson GISP, GIS Manager of Brown’s Environmental and Remote Technologies Lab will demonstrate workflows for conveying information embedded within geospatial data by way of interactive maps, dashboards, and story maps which help decision-makers, researchers, and the public get the answers they need to a wide variety of questions, from locating at risk populations, to allocating resources such as vaccines. The demonstration will utilize a variety of data from the census, the Rhode Island Geographic Information System (RIGIS), and other sources.

11:30-12 PM Data Science Initiative Fair February Talk: “Diversity and Inequality in Social Networks: From Recommendation to Information Diffusion“

In this talk, Ana-Andrea Stoica, Ph.D. Candidate, Columbia University, discusses possible explanations for algorithmic bias in social networks, specifically in (i) recommendation algorithms and (ii) the influence maximization problem. Using the preferential attachment model with unequal communities, we’ll characterize the relationship between homophily, network centrality, and bias through the power-law degree distributions of the nodes, and study the conditions in which diversity interventions can actually yield more efficient and equitable outcomes. 

12-1 PM Advance-CTR Workshop: “Highlights from the Advance-CTR Informatics Core”

As Part of the I2S2 (Informatics and Implementation Science Learning Series), Dr. Karen Crowley, Manager of Health Data Science, Advance-CTR Informatics Core and the Brown Center for Biomedical Informatics, will provide an overview of the services and resources available through the Informatics Core with a special focus on our unique implementation of REDCap, a secure web application for building and managing online surveys and databases. She will also highlight N3C, the National COVID Cohort Collaborative, how Advance-CTR is participating and the plan to support researchers who wish to access this unique dataset.

12:10-1 PM Data Science Initiative Fair February Talk: “The Effect of Homophily on Disparate Visibility of Minorities in People Recommender Systems“

Evaluating (and mitigating) the potential negative effects of algorithms has become a central issue in computer science. While research on algorithmic bias in ranking systems has dealt with disparate exposure of products or individuals, little attention has been devoted to the analysis of the disparate exposure of subgroups of the population. Francesco Fabbri investigates the visibility of minorities in people recommender systems in social networks. 

2-3 PM Center for Digital Scholarship (CDS) Workshop: “Social Media as Data: Tools for Mining & Analyzing Social Media”

Dr. Ashley Champagne, Digital Humanities Librarian and Head, Digital Scholarship Project Planning for the Brown University Library’s Center for Digital Scholarship (CDS) will present on tools and strategies for analyzing social media and her collaborations with faculty utilizing social media analysis in their research on health disparities.

2-2:30 PM Data Science Initiative Fair February Talk: “Fair Algorithms for Clustering“

Dr. Suman Bera, Postdoctoral Researcher, University of California-Santa Cruz will look at clustering problems through the lens of algorithmic fairness. Our notion of fairness is inspired by the disparate impact doctrine. Given a collection of points containing many protected groups, the goal is to find good clustering solutions where each cluster fairly represents each group. 

2:30-3 PM Data Science Initiative Fair February Talk: “Auditing Wikipedia’s Hyperlinks Network on Polarizing Topics“

People eager to learn about a topic can access Wikipedia to form a preliminary opinion. Despite the solid revision process behind the encyclopedia’s articles, the users’ exploration process is still influenced by the hyperlinks’ network. Cristina Menghini sheds light on this overlooked phenomenon by investigating how articles describing complementary subjects of a topic interconnect, and thus may shape readers’ exposure to diverging content. To quantify this, we introduce the \emph{exposure to diverse information}, a metric that captures how users’ exposure to multiple subjects of a topic varies click-after-click by leveraging navigation models.

3-3:30 PM Data Science Initiative Fair February Talk: “Reducing Structural Bias in Networks by Link Insertion“

The topology of the hyperlink graph among pages expressing different opinions may influence the exposure of readers to diverse content. Structural bias may trap a reader in a “polarized” bubble with no access to other opinions. We model readers’ behavior as random walks. A node is in a “polarized” bubble if the expected length of a random walk from it to a page of different opinion is large. The structural bias of a graph is the sum of the radii of highly-polarized bubbles. We study the problem of decreasing the structural bias through edge insertions. “Healing” all nodes with high polarized bubble radius is hard to approximate within a logarithmic factor, so we focus on finding the best 𝑘 edges to insert to maximally reduce the structural bias. Dr. Shahrzad Haddadan, Postdoctoral Researcher, Data Science Initiative, Brown University presents RePBubLik, an algorithm that leverages a variant of the random walk closeness centrality to select the edges to insert. RePBubLik obtains, under mild conditions, a constant-factor approximation. It reduces the structural bias faster than existing edge-recommendation methods, including some designed to reduce the polarization of a graph.

• 2020

Theme: “Get to know the data specialists at your institution, the kinds of work they do, and the data and associated issues with which these data specialists engage”

Monday, February 10, 2020

9:00 am – 2:30 pm Data Carpentry Workshop Patrick Ma Digital Scholarship Lab (DSL), Room 135, Rockefeller Library, 10 Prospect Street

Kick off Love Data Week by learning data organization and cleaning skills. The University Library is holding a Data Carpentry workshop on OpenRefine and GitHub led by certified instructors at Brown, Ashley Champagne and Kelsey Sawyer and Birkin Diana, digital scholarship programmer. Check out the lessons online. Brown is a member of Carpentries, a not-for-profit, which trains instructors to teach faculty and students foundational coding, and data science skills to researchers.

7:00 pm – 9:00 pm  Nerd Nite RI: Data Slam Edition - The Underground, Stephen Robert 62′ Campus Center, 75 Waterman Street

Nerd Nite is a monthly event held around the globe during which experts give fun-yet-informative presentations on a variety of topics. We are excited to collaborate with Nerd Nite RI for Nerd Nite RI: Data Slam Edition! Bar food and drinks provided.

Tuesday, February 11, 2020

12:00 pm – 1:00 pm Using Administrative Data to Investigate the Opioid Crisis in Rhode Island  - The Policy Lab, 225 Dyer Street  Room 565 (Floor 5)

Please join the Policy Lab at Brown University for a lunch conversation with guest speaker Kim Paull, Director of Data and Analytics at Rhode Island’s Executive Office of Health and Human Services (EOHHS). Kim directs the integrated data system team at EOHHS and will speak about their work using administrative data from across multiple agencies to drive opioid policy in Rhode Island. Co-sponsored by the School of Public Health and the Taubman Center for American Politics and Policy. Lunch will be provided.

2:00 pm – 3:00 pm Everything You Wanted to Know about FERPA but were Afraid to Ask- South Street Landing, Room 499, 350 Eddy Street

Please join the Office of the General Counsel (OGC) for a discussion on the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA). The discussion is open to anyone and is geared to those who have limited knowledge of FERPA. Please RSVP by contacting Nancy Diehl at nancy_diehl@brown.edu.

8:00 pm Movie Night Molly’s Game (2017) Metcalf Auditorium, Metcalf Research Building, 190 Thayer Street

In collaboration with the Brown University Film Forum (BUFF), join us for a movie night all about data! Pizza provided. 

Wednesday, February 12, 2020

10:00 am – 11:00 am IRB Protocol Preparation and Review, South Street Landing, Room 445, 350 Eddy Street

Don’t let the IRB process overwhelm you! Come learn about Brown’s human subject research policies, and demystify the submission and review process. RSVP here.

12:00 pm – 1:30 pm Leveraging Big Data to Improve the Public’s Health - Patrick Ma Digital Scholarship Lab (DSL), Room 135, Rockefeller Library,  10 Prospect Street

In this panel, students and staff from Dr. Brandon Marshall’s research group will discuss various projects using “big data” sources to evaluate public health policies and interventions. Specific examples will include mitigating drug-related HIV outbreaks and preventing overdose deaths in the state of Rhode Island. Pizza lunch provided.

Thursday, February 13, 2020

12:00 pm – 1:30 pm Data Bytes - Sidney E. Frank Digital Studio, 1st floor Rockefeller Library, 10 Prospect Street

With respect to this year’s theme, we are proud to host “Data Bytes,” an event where data specialists offer “byte”-sized presentations on who they are, what they do, and the data with which they engage. Data specialists include representatives from the Center for Public Humanities, Data Science Initiative, CIS Data Science Practice Group and Center for Computation & Visualization, Center for Digital Scholarship, Office of Research Integrity, Office of the General Counsel, the Multimedia Lab, the Environmental and Remote Technologies Lab, and Advance CTR and Brown Center for Biomedical Informatics. Presentations will be followed by an informal opportunity to meet your data specialists. Kabob and Curry “bytes” provided. 

2:00 pm – 3:00 pm - Data Science Initiative (DSI) Special Seminar – Gradient Flows: From PDE to Data Analysis- Division of Applied Mathematics, Room 108, 170 Hope Street

Please join the DSI and Division of Applied Mathematics for a special seminar by Dr. Franca Hoffman (Cal Tech). 

4:00 pm – 5:30 pm Challenging Silicon Valley’s Infinite Loop of Irresponsibility - Building for Environmental Research and Teaching (BERT), Room 130, 85 Waterman Street

Please join the Computer Science Department, Data Science Initiative, and Science & Technology Studies for a talk by Brown alumna and New York Times reporter Natasha Singer. Reception in the BERT Lobby to follow.

Friday, February 14, 2020

8:30 am – 10:00 am Carney Institute for Brain Science Coffee Hour with Data Management and Sharing Specialists Carney Institute for Brain Science, 4th floor, 164 Angell Street

Have questions about data management, sharing, and preservation? Join us for an informal Carney Institute Coffee Hour and chat with our data management and sharing specialists to learn about the policies, services, and tools available at Brown. 

12:00 pm – 1:00 pm Data Science, Computing, and Visualization (DSCoV) Workshop: Exploratory Data Analysis with Pandas in Python, Part One Carney Institute Innovation Hub, 4th floor, 164 Angell Street

Exploratory data analysis (EDA) is the first step of any data science project. In the first part of this pandas tutorial, Andras Zsom will walk through how to read in csv, excel, and sql data into a pandas data frame, how to select specific rows and columns based on index or condition, and how to merge and append various data frames. Coding experience with python is required, but no experience with the pandas package is necessary to follow the tutorial.

Pizzas and sodas will be served. Sponsored by the Data Science Initiative and organized by the Center for Computation and Visualization. 

2:00 pm – 3:00 pm Research Misconduct: Demystifying the Review Process & Risk Mitigation Measures South Street Landing, Room 493, 350 Eddy Street

Research misconduct is defined as fabrication of data, falsification of data, and plagiarism. Come to this session to learn about how Brown handles research misconduct allegations and measures that can be implemented to reduce risk. Candy will be served!

2:00 pm – 3:00 pmData Science Initiative (DSI) Special Seminar – Networking for Big Data: Theory, Algorithms, and Applications Data Science Initiative, 3rd Floor Open Seminar Space, 164 Angell Street

Please join the Data Science Initiative, Department of Physics, and School of Engineering for a lecture by Dr. Edmund Yeh (Northeastern University).

Monday, February 10, 2020

9:00 am – 2:30 pm Data Carpentry Workshop Patrick Ma Digital Scholarship Lab (DSL), Room 135, Rockefeller Library, 10 Prospect Street

Kick off Love Data Week by learning data organization and cleaning skills. The University Library is holding a Data Carpentry workshop on OpenRefine and GitHub led by certified instructors at Brown, Ashley Champagne and Kelsey Sawyer and Birkin Diana, digital scholarship programmer. Check out the lessons online. Brown is a member of Carpentries, a not-for-profit, which trains instructors to teach faculty and students foundational coding, and data science skills to researchers.

7:00 pm – 9:00 pm  Nerd Nite RI: Data Slam Edition - The Underground, Stephen Robert 62′ Campus Center, 75 Waterman Street

Nerd Nite is a monthly event held around the globe during which experts give fun-yet-informative presentations on a variety of topics. We are excited to collaborate with Nerd Nite RI for Nerd Nite RI: Data Slam Edition! Bar food and drinks provided.

Tuesday, February 11, 2020

12:00 pm – 1:00 pm Using Administrative Data to Investigate the Opioid Crisis in Rhode Island  - The Policy Lab, 225 Dyer Street  Room 565 (Floor 5)

Please join the Policy Lab at Brown University for a lunch conversation with guest speaker Kim Paull, Director of Data and Analytics at Rhode Island’s Executive Office of Health and Human Services (EOHHS). Kim directs the integrated data system team at EOHHS and will speak about their work using administrative data from across multiple agencies to drive opioid policy in Rhode Island. Co-sponsored by the School of Public Health and the Taubman Center for American Politics and Policy. Lunch will be provided.

2:00 pm – 3:00 pm Everything You Wanted to Know about FERPA but were Afraid to Ask- South Street Landing, Room 499, 350 Eddy Street

Please join the Office of the General Counsel (OGC) for a discussion on the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA). The discussion is open to anyone and is geared to those who have limited knowledge of FERPA. Please RSVP by contacting Nancy Diehl at nancy_diehl@brown.edu.

8:00 pm Movie Night Molly’s Game (2017) Metcalf Auditorium, Metcalf Research Building, 190 Thayer Street

In collaboration with the Brown University Film Forum (BUFF), join us for a movie night all about data! Pizza provided. 

Wednesday, February 12, 2020

10:00 am – 11:00 am IRB Protocol Preparation and Review, South Street Landing, Room 445, 350 Eddy Street

Don’t let the IRB process overwhelm you! Come learn about Brown’s human subject research policies, and demystify the submission and review process. RSVP here.

12:00 pm – 1:30 pm Leveraging Big Data to Improve the Public’s Health - Patrick Ma Digital Scholarship Lab (DSL), Room 135, Rockefeller Library,  10 Prospect Street

In this panel, students and staff from Dr. Brandon Marshall’s research group will discuss various projects using “big data” sources to evaluate public health policies and interventions. Specific examples will include mitigating drug-related HIV outbreaks and preventing overdose deaths in the state of Rhode Island. Pizza lunch provided.

Thursday, February 13, 2020

12:00 pm – 1:30 pm Data Bytes - Sidney E. Frank Digital Studio, 1st floor Rockefeller Library, 10 Prospect Street

With respect to this year’s theme, we are proud to host “Data Bytes,” an event where data specialists offer “byte”-sized presentations on who they are, what they do, and the data with which they engage. Data specialists include representatives from the Center for Public Humanities, Data Science Initiative, CIS Data Science Practice Group and Center for Computation & Visualization, Center for Digital Scholarship, Office of Research Integrity, Office of the General Counsel, the Multimedia Lab, the Environmental and Remote Technologies Lab, and Advance CTR and Brown Center for Biomedical Informatics. Presentations will be followed by an informal opportunity to meet your data specialists. Kabob and Curry “bytes” provided. 

2:00 pm – 3:00 pm - Data Science Initiative (DSI) Special Seminar – Gradient Flows: From PDE to Data Analysis- Division of Applied Mathematics, Room 108, 170 Hope Street

Please join the DSI and Division of Applied Mathematics for a special seminar by Dr. Franca Hoffman (Cal Tech). 

4:00 pm – 5:30 pm Challenging Silicon Valley’s Infinite Loop of Irresponsibility - Building for Environmental Research and Teaching (BERT), Room 130, 85 Waterman Street

Please join the Computer Science Department, Data Science Initiative, and Science & Technology Studies for a talk by Brown alumna and New York Times reporter Natasha Singer. Reception in the BERT Lobby to follow.

Friday, February 14, 2020

8:30 am – 10:00 am Carney Institute for Brain Science Coffee Hour with Data Management and Sharing Specialists Carney Institute for Brain Science, 4th floor, 164 Angell Street

Have questions about data management, sharing, and preservation? Join us for an informal Carney Institute Coffee Hour and chat with our data management and sharing specialists to learn about the policies, services, and tools available at Brown. 

12:00 pm – 1:00 pm Data Science, Computing, and Visualization (DSCoV) Workshop: Exploratory Data Analysis with Pandas in Python, Part One Carney Institute Innovation Hub, 4th floor, 164 Angell Street

Exploratory data analysis (EDA) is the first step of any data science project. In the first part of this pandas tutorial, Andras Zsom will walk through how to read in csv, excel, and sql data into a pandas data frame, how to select specific rows and columns based on index or condition, and how to merge and append various data frames. Coding experience with python is required, but no experience with the pandas package is necessary to follow the tutorial.

Pizzas and sodas will be served. Sponsored by the Data Science Initiative and organized by the Center for Computation and Visualization. 

2:00 pm – 3:00 pm Research Misconduct: Demystifying the Review Process & Risk Mitigation Measures South Street Landing, Room 493, 350 Eddy Street

Research misconduct is defined as fabrication of data, falsification of data, and plagiarism. Come to this session to learn about how Brown handles research misconduct allegations and measures that can be implemented to reduce risk. Candy will be served!

2:00 pm – 3:00 pmData Science Initiative (DSI) Special Seminar – Networking for Big Data: Theory, Algorithms, and Applications Data Science Initiative, 3rd Floor Open Seminar Space, 164 Angell Street

Please join the Data Science Initiative, Department of Physics, and School of Engineering for a lecture by Dr. Edmund Yeh (Northeastern University).