Stopping Human Trafficking: The complex legal, economic, and criminal landscape and our work to stop modern slavery and online child sex work

Speaker: John Powell, Data Scientist, MSc, Fellow of the Institute of Actuaries. Joshua Hewson, Student, Williams College. Manuchehr Aminian, Assistant Professor of Mathematics, Cal Poly Pomona.
Date and Time: March 24, 2022 4:00p.m. Eastern
Abstract: Banks unknowingly process financial transactions relating to Modern Slavery ad Human Trafficking (MSHT) and Child Sexual Exploitation (CSE) enabling criminals to generate estimated profits of $160 billion p.a. from exploiting millions of individuals. Currently less than 1% of these transactions are being detected and only 0.2% of individuals in slavery are rescued. Legal requirements and financial incentives encourage financial institutions to withhold their data, limiting the visibility a single institution has on the wider network of associated financial transactions linked to a given entity. Most criminal activity is visible in the pattern of transactions rather than any one transaction, meaning no individual financial institution has the necessary information to understand the broader context of transactions passing through its customers’ accounts.  We have developed a proof-of-concept persona based statistical model of payments across different platforms associated with criminal and non-criminal entities. We use our model to illustrate the additional crimes which could be detected with secure data sharing in place between financial institutions.

Biosketch: John Powell is a data scientist at RedCompass Labs, a financial services firm based in London, UK. Prior to that, Powell was an Actuary at Aon, and has also worked at the Government Actuary’s Department. Powell completed his Master’s in Physics with Theoretical Physics at Imperial College London.

Joshua Hewson is a student at Williams College, where he is pursuing a Bachelor’s in Mathematics and Computer Science.

Manuchehr Aminian is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Mathematics and Statistics at Cal Poly Pomona. Aminian completed his postdoctoral fellowship at Colorado State University, and his Ph.D in Mathematics at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.

Explaining Racial Disparities in Personal Bankruptcy Outcomes

Speaker: Sasha Indarte, Assistant Professor of Finance at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania Date and Time: March 10, 2022 4:00 p.m. Eastern
Abstract: We document a persistent Black-white gap in personal bankruptcy outcomes. Using preliminary bankruptcy outcomes data from three states while we process new national data, we replicate earlier findings that Black filers are more likely to have their bankruptcy cases dismissed without any debt relief. We further show that these disparities hold even conditional on a wide array of individual characteristics observable on bankruptcy filings. After assembling a dataset covering personal bankruptcy filings along with imputed filer, judge, trustee, and attorney race, we uncover strong evidence for racial bias driven by homophily: Black filer court outcomes are less favorable when randomly assigned to a white bankruptcy trustee. There is also moderately strong evidence for the importance of bankruptcy trustees—court employees randomly assigned to oversee each bankruptcy case.

Biosketch: Sasha Indarte is an Assistant Professor of Finance at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. Her primary areas of research are household finance, banking, and macroeconomics. Her research investigates the causes and consequences of financial distress using big data, quasi-experimental research designs, and structural economic models. Her current research focuses on the drivers of personal bankruptcy, racial disparities in personal bankruptcy, and the impact of social insurance on household debt. Recently, her project “The Origins of Serial Sovereign Default” was awarded an NSF grant. She completed her PhD in Economics at Northwestern University in 2019 and her BA in Economics and Applied Mathematics & Statistics at Macalester College.

A Road to Inequity Paved with Good Intentions: Data Science and Health Care Delivery in the US

Speaker: Taj Mustapha, Assistant Dean of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, University of Minnesota Medical School and Assistant Professor of Internal Medicine and Pediatrics, University of Minnesota
Date and Time: February 24, 2022 4:00p.m. Eastern
Abstract: Researchers have uncovered racial disparities in infant and maternal mortality, survival after myocardial infarction, pain control for long bone fractures, vaccine administration, cancer screening, minimally-invasive versus radical surgical procedures, and more. However, those inequities remain. In fact, many times institutional efforts to address racial and other disparities have resulted in increased disparities.  In order to understand why, it is important to understand the barriers to equity fundamental to the foundation of modern medicine and healthcare delivery in the US. This talk seeks to expose some of those foundational and systemic barriers, and to generate discussion about the role of data science in overcoming these barriers in the future.

Biosketch: Dr. Mustapha received her MD from the University of California San Francisco, and completed her combined internal medicine and pediatrics residency training at the University of Minnesota.  She is an Assistant Professor of Internal Medicine and Pediatrics at the University of Minnesota and serves as the Assistant Dean for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion for the medical school as well as the Chief of Equity Strategy for M Health Fairview. Her academic interests focus on assessments as they relate to both education and health care delivery, with special attention to equity and inclusion.

Intersectionality Methodology: Quantitative Research Considerations

Speaker: Chayla Haynes Davison, Assistant Professor of Higher Education at Texas A&M University
Date and Time: February 10, 2022 4:00p.m. Eastern
Abstract: Kimberlé Crenshaw’s scholarship on Black women has been the springboard for numerous education studies in which researchers use intersectionality as a theoretical framework; however, few have considered the possibilities of intersectionality as a methodological tool. Dr. Haynes Davison will offer recommendations for quantitative scholars interested in using their research to address the intersectional erasure and scholarly neglect that Black women experience in higher education and beyond.

Biosketch: Dr. Chayla Haynes Davison is an Assistant Professor of Higher Education Administration and the recipient of Texas A&M University’s Robert and Mavis Simmons Faculty Fellowship. She received her Ph.D. in Higher Education from the University of Denver and also holds a M.A. in College Student Personnel from Bowling Green State University. Dr. Haynes Davison’s research interests and expertise include: critical and inclusive pedagogy, critical race theory and intersectionality scholarship (i.e., critical race theory, critical race feminism, and intersectionality), and Black women in higher education. She is co-editor of Interrogating Whiteness and Relinquishing Power: White Faculty’s Commitment to Racial Consciousness in STEM Classrooms (Peter Lang Publishing) and Race Equity and the Learning Environment: The Global Relevance of Critical and Inclusive Pedagogies in Higher Education (Stylus Publishing). Her scholarship has also been featured in Teachers College Record, the International Journal of Teaching and Learning in Higher Education, the Journal of Critical Scholarship in Higher Education and Student Affairs, and the Journal of Negro Education.

Queer Feminist Trans DataViz Care: Methods of Visualizing the “Invisible” and the Hypervisible

Speaker: Jen Jack Gieseking, Associate Professor of Geography, University of Kentucky Ph.D.
Date and Time: January 27, 2022 4:00p.m. Eastern
Abstract: Does “not tiny” data ever qualify as big enough when marginalized people do not have the resources to produce, self-categorize, analyze, or store “big data”? How can algorithms support projects of resistance and resilience, rather than merely enact processes of data sorting and surveillance? In which ways can data visualization multiply rather than simplify narratives? Most data collected about lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans*, and queer (LGBTQ) people throughout history has only been used to pathologize and stigmatize. I draw upon the geographic concept to address how the size of data, the construction of algorithms, and the outcome of data visualizations matter to lesbians, queers, and trans people too. I examine the relationship between the digital and material spaces of lesbians, queers, and trans people, and their social and economic repercussions through research completed at the Lesbian Herstory Archives on LGBTQ publications and organizing records, as well as data scraping of the #ftm and #mtf hashtags on Tumblr. Drawing upon a queer trans feminist and critical geographic perspective, I argue that a wide range of imbricated scales of technology exist which extend the usual vertical portrayal of scale (from the body to the global) to a horizontal positionality that reveals the nuanced way power operates.

Biosketch: Jack Gieseking is an urban cultural geographer, feminist and queer theorist, and environmental psychologist. Their research centeres around lesbian, queer, and trans geographies, with a recent monograph entitled A Queer New York: Geographies of Lesbians, Dykes, and Queers, 1983-2008, a ethnography that focuses on LGBTQ+ data visualization, and more.

Decolonizing Data: A Quantitative Native Approach to Indigenous Mental Health and Higher Education

Speaker: Autumn Asher BlackDeer, PhD candidate and cofounder of the BIPOC PhD Collective for doctoral students of color at Washington University in St. Louis.
Date and Time: October 28, 2021 4:00p.m. Eastern
Abstract: American Indian and Alaska Native communities contend with substantial mental health disparities due to high levels of economic and social disadvantage, acculturation, and stress; however, these issues cannot be understood without the larger context of historical and ongoing trauma. Education has long been used as a tool for assimilation, resulting in less than one-fourth of the Native population holding a college degree. Current critiques of these issues are remiss to address the role of Native data in resolving these disparities. This presentation will illuminate the role of colonialism across Indigenous mental health and higher education, demonstrate the lack of Native data as a social justice issue, and conclude with decolonization as a pathway towards Indigenous data sovereignty and governance.

Biosketch: Autumn Asher BlackDeer is a queer decolonial scholar from the Cheyenne and Arapaho Nation whose work seeks to illuminate the impact of structural violence on American Indian and Alaska Native communities. BlackDeer centers Indigenous voices throughout her research by using quantitative approaches and big data as tools for responsible storytelling. Her dissertation investigates manifestations of structural violence through Alaska Native mothers’ experiences of interpersonal violence, including family, partner, and community levels of violence, in addition to mental health, substance use, and maternal-child health outcomes. Autumn is a strong proponent for American Indian higher education, advocate for survivors of sexual violence, and is committed to decolonizing the academy and achieving equity across Indian Country.

Unrigging the Law: Building a Civil Legal System that Works for the People

Speaker: Molly Coleman, co-founder and first Executive Director of People’s Parity Project (PPP)
Date and Time: September 30, 2021 4:00p.m. Eastern
Abstract: Corporate America avoids accountability for the harm it causes by shutting workers and consumers out of the justice system entirely. On the rare occasion ordinary people can make it into the courtroom at all, they’re up against the best lawyers money can buy, in front of judges predisposed to side with the wealthy and powerful. Law students are taught—and many lawyers continue to believe—that true justice is achieved through the civil legal system: two parties, equal in the eyes of the law, both with a fair chance, no matter how different their social positions outside the courtroom. But this adversarial system is not working; instead, the legal system is rigged against those most in need of justice. In this talk, I focus on how it is that we got here, what the consequences have been, and how this judicial capture is situated within larger conversations around justice in America. I close with one proposed path forward.

Biosketch: Molly Coleman is a co-founder of PPP and the organization’s first Executive Director. She is a graduate of Harvard Law School, where she worked for a number of legal organizations committed to advancing justice for the most marginalized, including Gender Justice, Legal Voice, the Mental Health Legal Advisors Committee, the Hennepin County Public Defenders Office, and the Fair Labor Division of the Massachusetts Attorney General’s Office; she also served as Editor-in-Chief of the Harvard Civil Rights-Civil Liberties Law Review. Prior to law school, Molly spent three years with City Year New York, working to close the opportunity gap for students in Harlem and the Bronx and to empower young people to become civically engaged leaders. She is a graduate of the University of Wisconsin – Madison, and a native of Saint Paul, Minnesota.

Racism and Anti-racism in STEM Education

Speaker: Niral Shah, Assistant Professor at UW College of Education
Date and Time: September 16, 2021 4:00p.m. Eastern
Abstract: In the last year, conversations about “anti-racism” have gone mainstream, due in large part to sustained activism over the past decade in support of Black Lives. This has compelled institutions across a variety of domains to question how race and racism matter in their specific fields. In this talk, I focus on processes of racialization in STEM education, which is typically perceived to be innocent, race-neutral territory. Drawing on my work as a STEM education researcher, teacher, and teacher educator, I begin by offering a theoretical frame for understanding how White supremacy interfaces with STEM, especially at the level of everyday moments of teaching and learning. Next, I present a tool called EQUIP (https://www.equip.ninja/), which was designed to amplify equity in classrooms by generating quantitative analytics on student participation patterns. Finally, I close with an invitation to consider the limits of classroom-level reform as a means toward racial justice for BIPOC communities.

Biosketch: Niral Shah is an associate professor of the Learning Sciences & Human Development, and is director of the Race, Theory, & Design Lab. His research concerns how people learn racism and anti-racism. Shah’s prior work has focused on race and racism in STEM education, specifically how racial narratives about STEM ability affect students’ identities and participation in classrooms. He is also a co-developer of the EQUIP classroom observation tool (www.equip.ninja), which supports teachers and educational leaders to identify and mitigate implicit bias in classrooms.

Community Data and Racial Equity: Strategies for Research and Data Justice

Speakers: Andres Lopez, Ph.D., Research Director at Coalition for Communities of Color and Mira Mohsini, Ph.D., Senior Researcher at Coalition for Communities of Color
Date and Time: March 18, 2021 4:00 p.m. Eastern
Abstract: For decades, if not centuries, data has been weaponized against Black, Indigenous, and People of  Color (BIPOC) communities by dominant institutions to reinforce oppressive systems that result  in divestment and often inappropriate and harmful policies. Local, regional, and state  governments rely on datasets that misrepresent BIPOC communities while dismissing the lived  experiences of community members as unreliable and untrustworthy. One strategy to address this  issue is ensuring that government datasets are more equitable through efforts such as survey  modernization and community engagement. However, these often place tremendous burden on  communities to provide input and feedback, over and over again, without seeing any tangible  outcomes from these efforts at the community level. To advance racial equity and reduce the  harms done by extractive and exploitative data practices, we propose elevating the elements,  uses, and power of community data – including stories and narratives of everyday lived  experiences – by employing strategies framed by the principles of research and data justice.  These strategies are necessary in order for community members to understand the value of their  lived experiences as community data. These strategies are also necessary in order to communicate the structure of community data to governments and other dominant institutions as  valid for equitable decision-making. In this presentation, we discuss some of these strategies for  research and data justice.

Embracing Discomfort: Bridging the Human Gap in Data Science

Speaker: Shilad Sen, Professor, Mathematics, Statistics, and Computer Science Department, Macalester College Data Science Research Fellow, Target Corporation
Date and Time: March 4, 2021 4:00 p.m. Eastern
Abstract: Data science has been lifted up as a way for quantitative experts to address societal problems. But “data science for good’s” failure to regularly create “good” often stems from an embrace of comfort by data scientists themselves. Data scientists choose problems and approaches they can easily understand and control. In contrast, they do not typically enter into meaningful dialog with the individuals and communities most reflected, affected, and oppressed by the data they study.
I will discuss two examples of failures driven by an embrace of comfort. First, I will describe a study in information geoprovenance, or where information comes from geographically.  I will describe how we hit a wall in this line of research until we moved forward in partnership with media experts and data producers.

Second, I will talk about the recent rise in “data science for good courses” in higher education. While these courses hold great promise, they typically fall short of providing students with the lasting skills needed to center historically minoritized communities when conducting data analyses. I will share a vision of how undergraduates may address this challenge by engaging in meaningful service of local organizations who have data needs. This is a work in progress, and I will share as many problems I don’t know how to solve in this new educational model as ideas and opportunities.

Giving our Data Legs: Lessons from Research on Racial Disparities in Discipline

Speaker: Russell Skiba, Ph.D ,Professor Emeritus Department of Counseling and Educational Psychology Former Director, The Equity Project Indiana University
Date and Time: February 18, 2021, 4:00 p.m. Eastern
Abstract: Research for over 40 years has found deep inequity in the use of school suspension and expulsion for students of color, especially African Americans.  Yet for many years, those disparities were virtually ignored by policymakers and educators.  This presentation will describe the nature of those disparities, and how research in recent years has begun to highlight the issue and contribute to changes in policy and practice.  In the process, the presentation will focus on framing and disseminating research in a way that addresses questions of equity.  How do we design our research so that it addresses key questions in the larger discourse concerning racial/ethnic inequity?  As the research reaches fruition, how can we disseminate it in a way to maximize its outreach to policymakers and advocates?

Labels Matter: Methodology and Data Visualization

Speaker: Gaelan Smith, Data Visualization Engineer and Knowledge Manager
Date and Time: February 4, 2021 4:00p.m. Eastern
Abstract: Our language drives what we choose to measure, and what we choose to measure drives our conversations. The visual and textual language we use to present our research, especially about underrepresented and marginalized communities, fundamentally
shapes the perception of and future course for not only our own work, but for everyone who
encounters it. We’ll explore how labels, colors, placement, flow, and accompanying text in data
visualization are as critically important to the intended message as the data itself.

Using Social Network Theory to Support Women in Conflict Zones

Speaker: Dr. Candice Price, Assistant Professor of Mathematics, Smith College
Date and Time: January 21, 2021 4:00p.m. Eastern
Abstract: In 2016, James Gatewood and I started working on a model to study the plight of women in conflict zones through the lens of social network analysis. This novel idea was to build a social network within troubled regions to assist in understanding the structure of women’s communities and identifying key individuals and groups that will help in rebuilding and empowering the lives of women. Our first contribution to this idea was a paper titled “Utilizing Social Network Analysis to Study Communities of Women in Conflict Zones”. We believe this article can be used as the foundation for a model that will represent the connections between women in these communities. In this presentation, we will explore the ideas in the article as well as the next steps, including some cautionary advice

Naming Institutional Whiteness in the Cultural Realm

Speaker: Aruna D’Souza, Writer, Art Critic, and Curator
Date and Time: January 14, 2021 4:00p.m. Eastern
Abstract: This talk will address some of the ways in which museums, universities and colleges, and other sites of cultural production reify and protect whiteness at all costs- even, or especially, in the guise of diversity. 

The Critical Role of Forensic Science in Criminal Justice Reform

Speaker: Jasmine Drake, Ph.D., Associate Professor, TSU Center for Justice Research Faculty Fellow, 500 Women Scientists Fellow, Governor-Appointed Texas Forensic Science Commissioner
Date and Time: Dec. 3, 2020, 4:00 p.m. Eastern
Description: Dr. Jasmine Drake is an Assistant Professor and laboratory coordinator of the Forensic Science Learning Laboratory in the Barbara Jordan- Mickey Leland School of Public Affairs Administration of Justice Department at Texas Southern University in Houston, Tx. Dr. Drake is a native of Baton Rouge, LA and obtained her Bachelors of Science Degree from Southern University. She later obtained her Doctorate in Chemistry from Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge, LA. Upon the completion of her graduate studies, Dr. Drake received a prestigious postdoctoral fellowship from the National Research Council (NRC) to work for over 3 years at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) Center for neutron research in Gaithersburg, MD, where she investigated the synthesis and characterization of novel intermetallic solid state materials using neutron diffraction and scattering techniques.

Racial Justice & Philanthropy

Speaker: Samantha Tweedy, J.D., Chief Partnerships and Impact Officer at Robin Hood
Date and Time: Nov. 19, 2020, 4:00 p.m. Eastern
Biosketch: Samantha Tweedy serves as the first Chief Partnerships & Impact Officer of Robin Hood, a role she was instrumental in creating at New York City’s largest anti-poverty organization. She sets the strategy for, and manages, the team marshaling capital, attention, and resources to the programs and organizations that are proven to be most effective in the fight against poverty. Her key achievements since joining in 2018 include establishing the innovative $15M Power Fund to invest in leaders of color-led organizations that address economic injustice; launching the High-Quality Schools Fund to support the opening of 25 new schools serving New York City’s most under-resourced communities and students; and instituting Robin Hood’s first participatory initiative to directly engage community members in the organization’s grantmaking. She also designs and leads the execution of Robin Hood’s premier national annual thought leadership conference, No City Limits: Reimagining the Poverty Fight, which convenes community leaders, nonprofits, academics, policymakers, funders, and corporate leaders to explore the most effective solutions for increasing economic mobility. – full biosketch –

Broadening Voices in Environmental Justice: Reconceptualizing Quantitative Approaches

Speaker: Dena Montague, Ph.D., Research Associate, Global Environmental Justice Project
Date and Time: October 22, 2020, 4:00 p.m. Eastern
Abstract: In their article “A quantitative systematic review of distributive environmental justice literature: a rich history and the need for an enterprising future,” Glenn Althor and Bradd Witt quantify the biases and scopes of environmental justice literature and find that “some of the world’s most polluted and inequitable societies are least represented in authorship.” This presentation will discuss methods we are exploring at the Global Environmental Justice Project to include marginalized voices rooted in the Environmental Justice Movement, in new forms of authorship. These forms of authorship range from expanding Western notions of quantitative data in West Africa to developing new approaches to data literacy in the U.S.