Sponsored Events
May 11-12, 2023: Data Carpentries Workshop
The Carpentries is an international network of data scientists and technical specialists who provide training in a wide range of data skills including Python, R, data management, and much more. The two-day workshop (from 10am-3pm, with additional hang-out and Q&A until 5pm) will be taught by data specialists from academia and industry brought in for Penn Undergraduate Research Mentoring Program students. Students will be introduced to OpenRefine, a tool for data management, and Python, the primary programming language for most data scientists. From data analysis with pandas to data visualization with matplotlib, the session will prove useful to add to students’ technical toolkit for academic research, further studies, and beyond. Participants will be using a real-world data set to learn and practice skills that can be applied to any research area. Moreover, participants will gain access to Penn libraries data specialists who can assist students throughout their research and time at Penn. This event is co-sponsored by the Penn Libraries, Center for Undergraduate Research & Fellowships, Data Driven Discovery Initiative, and MindCORE in association with Data Carpentries.
February 23, 2023: Human Centered AI: Where is ChatGPT and Generative AI Headed?
The arrival of ChatGPT has sparked lively debate about how generative AI will impact universities like ours and society at large. Penn faculty have been at the forefront of tracking the impact of AI across diverse fields including the sciences, technology, media and business. We are at a potentially transformative moment in the use of AI, with tantalizing opportunities and challenges ahead. Please join us for a panel discussion hosted by Penn’s Data Driven Discovery Initiative on “Human Centered AI: Where is ChatGPT and Generative AI Headed?”
Time: 4:00-5:30pm
Location: Class of ’78 Orrery Pavilion (Van Pelt-Dietrich Library, 6th floor)
A recording of the event can be viewed here.
As part of love data week, Data Driven Discovery Initiative is teaming up with Penn Libraries’ Research Data & Digital Scholarship to celebrate our love of data related to all things environmental. The event will feature a keynote talk by Dr. Eduardo Mercado on how analyzing whale songs can reveal insights about our ecosystem, a panel discussion with Water Center and True Elements on urban water use data, a tutorial on obtaining/visualizing renewable energy data, and a walk in the Woodlands to collect visceral data. For more details on each session, please visit our LOVE Environment Data Day page.
Time: 9:30 AM – 4:30 PM
Location: Class of ’78 Orrery Pavilion (Van Pelt-Dietrich Library – 6th Floor)
Go to https://bit.ly/lovedata2023 to register for Zoom access to hybrid and virtual events
December 1, 2022: From Interstellar Rocks to Dark Energy: Building Data Science across Research Communities
Over the last 10 years, data science has changed the way that we approach science and research. In astronomy alone, it has impacted how we study scales as small as asteroids within our Solar System all the way to measures of the properties of the dark energy that drive the expansion of the universe. As data science becomes integral to the scientific process, there are many opportunities and challenges that we face from the development of ethical approaches to AI to how we educate a new generation of researchers to create robust and reproducible science. In this talk, Andrew Connolly discusses the evolution of data science at the University of Washington including teaching data science across the campus, incubator programs to jumpstart data science research, and the impact of Data Science for Social Good programs on the local community. Taking the lens of astronomy’s approach to data science, he will focus on examples of machine learning and AI that are being used to optimize the largest astronomical survey of the night sky, the Rubin Observatory’s Legacy Survey of Space and Time, as well as searches for planet IX within the outer Solar System. Rubin will produce the largest multicolor movie of our night sky ever undertaken. Combining its petabytes of data with new approaches to data science will profoundly transform our understanding of the universe.
Time: 4:00-5:00 PM
Location: Griski Meeting Room (Houston Hall – 3rd floor)
As part of the Center for the Advanced Study of India‘s weekly seminars, this talk invites data journalist Rukmini S. to discuss restrictions in the availability of essential data such as employment, poverty and covid mortality in India and the debate on democratizing data access.
Led by DevLab@Penn and PDRI, this two-day conference brings together academics and practitioners in the field of global development. Some topics discussed include:
- Big data and machine learning on corruption
- Big Data and Humanitarian Crises
- Gathering and analyzing data in social media
Hosted by the Methdology Working Group, this session on the Philadelphia Federal Statistical Research Data Center (FSRDC) introduces researchers to the types of data available in the FSRDC, how to prepare a research proposal to access the data, and how to become a Special Sworn Status Researcher. FSRDC established partnerships with Drexel University, Penn State, and University of Pennsylvania in 2017, and is one of 31 other research data centers across the nation.
Summer Institutes in Computational Social Science (SICSS) at Penn is a two-week workshop aimed at introducing and training early career researchers (Ph.D. students, post-doctoral researchers, and untenured faculty within 7 years of their Ph.D) on computational techniques used in the social sciences. Faculty from within and outside of Penn lead workshops and participants are able to get hands-on experience working with data and applying techniques learned. SICSS is sponsored by the Computational Social Science Lab, Data Driven Discovery Intiative, Population Studies Center, School of Arts and Sciences, Department of Sociology, and Annenberg School for Communication at Penn.