We are delighted to welcome speakers from Microsoft Research New England, MIT, Harvard, DataDotOrg, Netflix, Amazon Web Services (AWS), Salesforce, and more!
Join us for food, refreshments, and a day of discussion and learning. Reserve your tickets now. We hope to see you there!
Looking for a work in data science? Check out the internship, fellowship, and full-time opportunities below.
All the best,
The Harvard Data Science Initiative
Featured Event
Harvard Data Science Initiative Annual Conference 2022
Tuesday, November 15
9:00 AM – 5:00 PM EST Science + Engineering Complex, Harvard SEAS
Wednesday, November 16, 2022
8:00 AM – 6:30 PM EST
Klarman Hall,
Harvard Business School
Two days of in-person workshops, tutorials, + plenary sessions
The invites you to the HDSI Annual Conference 2022, a two-day, in-person event that will showcase data science in research and education through panels, keynotes, workshops, and tutorials featuring speakers from across Harvard, academia, and industry. Join us to connect with data science professionals, expert methodologists, and educators across disciplines to ignite new discoveries with impacts on health, education, economics, social policy, business, and the humanities.
This event is free and open to the public. Ticket required for admission. Please RSVP to reserve your spot.
Tickets for the Day 1 tutorial and workshop are sold out, but there are still tickets available for the Day 2 plenary sessions!
Day 2 Plenary Sessions:
Academic Keynote
Industry Keynote
Lightning Talks: HDSI Postdoctoral Fellows
Panel 1: Communicating Data Science – Trust with complexity
Panel 2: Social Impact Computing – Building an emerging field
Panel 3: Agent-Based Modeling – Complex ecosystems in silico
Panel 4: Data Science and Climate – Connecting planetary and human health
Read about some of our confirmed speakers:
Martin Tingley (Head of the Experimentation Platform Analysis Team, Netflix)
Industry Keynote
Martin Tingley leads a multidisciplinary team focused on developing and scaling both statistical methodology and software solutions to improve decision-making across the company.
Maria De-Arteaga (Assistant Professor, McCombs School of Business, University of Texas at Austin)
Academic Keynote
Maria holds a joint PhD in Machine Learning and Public Policy. Her research is focused on algorithmic fairness and human-AI complementarity.
Panel 2: Social Impact Computing – Building an emerging field
Danil has over 20 years of experience leading work across a range of sectors, investigating and innovating where technology, culture, and society converge.
Gina McCarthy (Former White House National Climate Advisor; Former EPA Administrator)
Panel 4: Data Science and Climate – Connecting planetary and human health
Gina McCarthy is an air quality expert who served as the first White House National Climate Advisor.
Upcoming Events
Using RStan for Bayesian Statistics
Thursday, October 27, 2022
5:00 PM – 6:00 PM EST
Virtual (Zoom)
Hosted by R User Group at the Harvard Data Science Initiative
Speaker:
Fayette Klaassen, Postdoctoral Researcher, Department of Global Health and Population, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health
Join RUG at the HDSI to learn about how you can use RStan to perform Bayesian statistics in R! This talk will provide an introduction to what Bayesian statistics and RStan are and how you can get started using them.
Fayette Klaassen works on Bayesian statistical models to predict COVID-19 infections. Fayette will introduce how to write a Stan program and describe the workflow using Stan as well as go over some example Stan models.
Optimal nonparametric estimation of heterogeneous
causal effects
Thursday, November 3, 2022
3:30 PM – 5:30 PM EST
Hawes Hall, Classroom 203, Harvard Business School
HDSI Causal Seminar: Edward Kennedy, Carnegie Mellon
Speaker:
Edward Kennedy, Associate Professor of Statistics and Data Science, Carnegie Mellon University
Abstract:
Estimation of heterogeneous causal effects -- i.e., how effects of policies and treatments vary across units -- is fundamental to medical, social, and other sciences, and plays a crucial role in optimal treatment allocation, generalizability, subgroup effects, and more. Many methods for estimating conditional average treatment effects (CATEs) have been proposed in recent years, but there have remained important theoretical gaps in understanding if and when such methods make optimally efficient use of the data at hand. This is especially true when the CATE has nontrivial structure (e.g., smoothness or sparsity). Read more.
Symposium on Science, Technology, + the Human Future
November 3 – 5, 2022
Harvard University
Hosted by the Program on Science, Technology + Society at Harvard University in celebration of its 20th Anniversary
The Program on Science, Technology & Society is celebrating its 20th anniversary with a Symposium on Science, Technology and the Human Future, to be held at Harvard from November 3-5, 2022. This major event will feature a wide range of high profile speakers across political, academic, and broader society.
The Symposium begins at 5pm on Thursday, November 3 with a keynote lecture by novelist Arundhati Roy, including performances of original music and fiction written by Harvard students. We continue on Friday with panels on the role of science and technology in shaping the human future, including the future of knowledge, life, policy, and cities. Saturday includes open discussions on how STS can position us to better understand and govern ourselves, our societies, and our Earth.
Biomedical Informatics Entrepreneurs Salon: Anne Wojcicki, 23andMe
Tuesday, November 8, 2022
5:00 PM – 6:00 PM EST
Virtual (Zoom)
Hosted by the Harvard Office of Technology Development and the Harvard Medical School Department of Biomedical Informatics
Speaker:
Anne Wojcicki, CEO and Co-Founder of 23andMe
Anne is a pioneer in the direct-to-consumer DNA testing space and her vision and persistence have allowed 23andMe to provide people with unprecedented access to genetic information. Through its research platform, 23andMe has brought personalized medicine directly to millions of consumers. Read more.
Thursday, November 10, 2022
1:30 PM – 2:30 PM EST
Virtual (Zoom)
HDSI Industry Seminar: Tammy Levy, Captain.tv
Speaker:
Tammy Levy, Chief Games Officer, Captain.tv
Abstract:
Underneath the fun of games we can find complex economies. In the last 15 years, with the rise of accessible broadband internet, video game developers have been able to regularly release game updates or "patches" through a process called live servicing. In addition to new content, game designers often add, remove, and rebalance the resources in the game– effectively manipulating the game's economy on a regular basis. In this talk, I will cover the basic principles of game economies and the core business KPIs used to monitor a game's performance. Then I'll walk through real examples behind the data-driven decisions for game optimization.
Meets weekly on Wednesdays
12:15 – 1:45 PM EST
November 9 – December 7 (no class on November 23)
Instructor:
Emily Oster, Professor of Economics, Brown University
Everyday Analytics is a month-long program designed to help students understand and process data as it is typically communicated to them via news media and popular culture. The program will focus on four key analytic concepts which, when deeply understood, can feed back into better understanding of data in and outside the workplace. The goal of the program is to enhance facility with these concepts to develop fluency in applying them in a wide range of situations. Front Row students will have an opportunity to work directly with data, alongside analysis of existing evidence.
Harvard Data Science Initiative Postdoctoral Fellowship Program
Deadline: Monday, November 14th, 11:59 PM EST
The Harvard University Data Science Initiative is seeking applications for itsHarvard Data Science Initiative Postdoctoral Fellows Programfor the 2023-2024 academic year. The normal duration of the Fellowship is two years. Fellows will receive a generous salary as well as an annual allocation for research and travel expenses.
We are looking for researchers whose interests are in data science, broadly construed, and including researchers with a primarily methodological focus as well as researchers who advance both methodology and application. Fellows will be provided with the opportunity to pursue their research agenda in an intellectually vibrant environment with ample mentorship. We are looking for independent researchers who will seek out collaborations with other fellows and with faculty across all schools of Harvard University.
We recognize that strength comes through diversity and actively seek and welcome people with diverse backgrounds, experiences, and identities.
Interested in reading more about data science projects and news at Harvard? Check out our blog for features, top stories, and what we are learning now in the world of data.
Interested in engaging more with the Data Science community at Harvard? Join our Slack! The Slack is currently Harvard only, so if you are interested simply click the button below and send us an email from your Harvard email address.
