Dr. Christopher Hench
Christopher is the Program Development Lead for the D-Lab and Digital Humanities at the University of California, Berkeley. He teaches Python, Bash, and Git workshops and consults on text analysis and web scraping. He is a PhD Candidate in German Literature and Medieval Studies at UC Berkeley and a Data Science Fellow at the Berkeley Institute for Data Science (BIDS). Christopher is interested in computational approaches to formal analyses of lyric and epic poetry. His research has been supported by the Fulbright Program and the DAAD.
Geoff Bacon
Geoff Bacon is a PhD student in the Language and Cognition Lab and Graduate Student Researchers at D-Lab at UC Berkeley. His research focuses on two questions: why languages look the way they do and how people learn to express temporal semantics. To study these, Geoff uses probabilistic models of language, including Bayesian and neural network models, which he programs in Python. At undergrad Geoff studied linguistics, classics and Arabic.
Dr Charlie Joey Hadley
Dr Charlie Hadley is currently a Research Technology Specialist at the University of Oxford specializing in data visualization. Their background is in biophysics and statistical computing, completing their MPhys at University of Leeds. At University of Oxford, Charlie is helping to launch a data visualization service for researchers and is experienced in teaching data science skills to social scientists.
Dr. Rob Mastrodomenico
Dr. Rob Mastrodomenico obtained a BSc in Mathematics and Statistics and PhD in Statistics at the University of Reading. He has spent his career working as a data scientist in the sports sector, building predictive models for sporting events. In 2011 he set up Global Sports Statistics which provides consultancy and modelling services to clients in the sports sector. Aside from statistics, Rob’s other interest is in programming. He has years of experience in many different languages but has become an advocate for Python and all that it can do to support all aspects of dealing with and modelling data.
Dr. Phillip Brooker
Dr Phillip Brooker is an interdisciplinary researcher in the field of social media analytics, with a background in sociology and sociological research methods (incorporating ethnomethodology, conversation analysis, science and technology studies, computer-supported cooperative work, and human-computer interaction). He has previously contributed to the development of Chorus (www.chorusanalytics.co.uk), a data collection and visual analysis package for social science research on Twitter. Phillip also co-convenes the Programming-as-Social-Science (PaSS) network (www.jiscmail.ac.uk/PaSS) which explores computer programming as a subject and methodological tool for social research and teaching. Phillip is currently employed as a Research Associate on CuRAtOR (Challenging Online Fear and Othering), which aims to investigate how online interactions result in 'cultures of fear'.
Professor David Harding
Professor David Harding is Interim Faculty Director of the D-Lab. He studies poverty and inequality, urban neighborhoods, education, incarceration, and prisoner reentry. He uses both qualitative and quantitative methods. He is the author of ''Living the Drama: Community, Conflict, and Culture Among Inner-City Boys'' (University of Chicago Press, 2005) and co-author of ''Rampage: The Social Roots of School Shootings'' (Basic Books, 2004).
Matthew Denny
Matt Denny is a PhD Candidate in Political Science and Social Data Analytics, and an NSF Big Data Social Science IGERT Fellow at Penn State University. Matt spends most of his time developing methods for analysing text and network data, which he applies to a wide range of projects related to: U.S. congressional and bureaucratic politics, organizational dynamics, international finance, and more recently, neuroscience. As part of his research, Matt works with a variety of large and complex datasets on a daily basis. Matt has also taught dozens of workshops on data management, high performance computing and “big data” analytics in R. To learn more about Matt Denny, check out his website: www.mjdenny.com
Professor Jonathan Slapin
Jonathan Slapin is Professor in the Department of Government at the University of Essex and Director of the Essex Summer School in Social Science Data Analysis.
He joined Essex in 2015, having previously held faculty positions at the University of Houston, Trinity College, Dublin and the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. He holds a PhD from the University of California, Los Angeles and a BA from Rutgers University.
His main research and teaching interests are in quantitative comparative politics, political institutions, and quantitative text analysis. His research frequently employs formal theory and quantitative methods to explore legislative behaviour, political parties, and democratic representation.
His most recent book, co-authored with Sven-Oliver Proksch, is entitled “The Politics of Parliamentary Debate: Parties, Rebels and Representation” and is published by Cambridge University Press.
Other research has appeared in leading political science journals such as the American Journal of Political Science, and the British Journal of Political Science.
Professor Richard Traunmüller
Richard Traunmüller is currently a visiting Professor of Quantitative Methods at the University of Mannheim and on leave from his Junior Professorship in Empirical Democracy Research at Goethe University Frankfurt. Prior to coming to Frankfurt, he has held positions at the Universities of Konstanz, Berne, Mannheim, and Essex. Richard has taught semester long courses on data visualization at these universities and has been invited to teach statistical visualization at the German Institute of Global and Area Studies (GIGA) and the European University Institute (EUI) in Florence. In addition, he is a regular instructor for data visualization at the Essex Summer School in Social Science Data Analysis. His work has appeared in major social science journals such as Comparative Political Studies, European Journal of Political Research, and Political Analysis, amongst others.
Andy Kirk
Andy Kirk is a UK-based data visualisation specialist: A design consultant, training provider, lecturer, author, speaker, researcher, and editor of an award-winning website. Since founding Visualising Data Ltd in 2011, he has delivered over 230 public and private training workshop events in 19 countries. Recent clients include Spotify, Telefónica, Tesco, Hershey, and CERN.
Andy is a visiting lecturer teaching data visualisation on a Master's degree programme at Imperial College London and is the author of two books, with the most recent work published in 2016 by Sage and titled 'Visualising Data: A Handbook for Data Driven Design'. He also provides data visualisation services to the Arsenal F.C. performance team.
Dr Andreea Moldovan
Dr Andreea Moldovan is a Data Scientist in the financial services sector. She was previously a Research Fellow at Exeter University. She has a background in sociology, social research methods, and survey methodology. Her main interests are latent variable modelling, longitudinal data analysis, and machine learning techniques that overcome assumptions of traditional regression methods. Andreea has run R demonstrations for teams based in a large charity and is very passionate about encouraging other social scientists to discover the wonderful world of R.
Rada Mihalcea
Rada Mihalcea is a Professor in the Computer Science and Engineering department at the University of Michigan. Her research interests are in computational linguistics, with a focus on lexical semantics, multilingual natural language processing, and computational social sciences. She serves or has served on the editorial boards of the Journals of Computational Linguistics, Language Resources and Evaluations, Natural Language Engineering, Research in Language in Computation, IEEE Transactions on Affective Computing, and Transactions of the Association for Computational Linguistics.
Gabe Ignatow
Gabe Ignatow is a Professor in the Department of Sociology at the University of North Texas. His research interests are in sociological theory, digital research methods, cognitive social science and philosophy of social science. He currently serves on the editorial boards of Sociological Forum and the Journal for the Theory of Social Behavior. Along with the two recent books on text mining co-authored with Rada Mihalcea, Gabe has co-authored a forthcoming volume on digital social research methods and co-edited the Oxford Handbook of Cognitive Sociology. He is currently working on a book project on sociological theory in the digital age while serving as his department's graduate program director.
Dr Taha Yasseri
Dr Taha Yasseri is Associate Professor of Sociology at University College Dublin and former Senior Research Fellow in Computational Social Science at University of Oxford and Turing Fellow at the Alan Turing Institute for Data Science and AI.
Dr Yasseri graduated from the Department of Physics at the Sharif University of Technology, Tehran, Iran, in 2005, where he also obtained his MSc in 2006, working on localization in scale free complex networks. In 2007, he moved to the Institute of Theoretical Physics at the University of Göttingen, Germany, where he completed his PhD in Complex Systems Physics in 2010. Prior to coming to Oxford, he spent two years as a Postdoctoral Researcher at the Budapest University of Technology and Economics.
Dr James Allen-Robertson
Dr James is a Computational Social Scientist in the Department of Sociology, University of Essex. His work focuses on utilizing data science tools, including large-scale text analysis, social network analysis and computer-vision as aids to explore social science problems. James is also the director of the BSc Sociology with Data Science at the University of Essex and author of Digital Culture Industry: A History of Digital Distribution (2013). James believes that technology needs more social science, and vice-versa.
Dr. Tom Chatfield
Dr. Tom Chatfield is an author, tech philosopher and broadcaster. His books explore the skills required to thrive in a digital age, including Critical Thinking (SAGE) and Live This Book! (Penguin).
Tom is interested in improving our understanding of digital technology and its uses in policy, education, and engagement. He is currently technology and media advisor at Agathos LLP, non-executive director at the Authors’ Licensing and Collecting Society, a faculty member at London’s School of Life, a Master’s committee member at the Economics Research Council, and a senior expert at the Global Governance Institute.
Tom speaks and broadcasts around the world on technology, the arts, and media. Appearances include TED Global, authors@Google, Science Foo Camp and the Houses of Parliament. He also guest lectures at universities in the UK and Europe.
Dr Janet Salmons
Dr. Janet Salmons is a free-range scholar, writer, coach, and artist through Vision2Lead. She serves as the Methods Guru for Sage Publications’ research community, www.MethodSpace.com. She is an honorary member of the TAA Council of Fellows (2019) and received the Mike Keedy Award (2018) in recognition of enduring service to authors.
John MacInnes
John MacInnes is emeritus professor of Sociology and Statistics at the University of Edinburgh, a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences and a Chartered Statistician. He was Vice President of the Royal Statistical Society (2019-2020), Strategic Advisor to the ESRC and British Academy on quantitative skills development, and helped develop the UK Q-Step programme. His substantive research interests have ranged from social demography to gender studies, nationalism and employment relations, confirming John Tukey’s claim that statisticians get to play in everyone’s backyard.
Dr Zina O'Leary
Dr Zina O’Leary is an internationally-recognized leader in research methodologies, and has a keen interest in the application of research to evidence-based decision-making. Zina is a Senior Fellow at the Australia and New Zealand School of Government and an adjunct Professor at the Joseph R. Biden School of Public Policy at the University of Delaware.
Nicola Thomas
Dr Nicola Thomas is an Associate Professor in Marketing at De Montfort University, Leicester UK. Nicola teaches several research-oriented modules, including dissertations and research projects, at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels. She enjoys teaching and researching using different research methods, both quantitative and qualitative in approach. In more recent years, Nicola has become particularly excited about the potential of working with a variety of social media data and the rich insights this type of data can bring.
Kelly Trivedy
Kelly Trivedy holds a multi-faceted career in education ranging across multiple course specialisms. She is an independent Academic Consultant, Tutor and Coach with Advance HE Senior Fellow status specialising in Higher Education with a key focus on reflective practice, critical thinking and research projects.
Upon completion of the Post-Graduate Diploma in Education (PGDE), Kelly worked as an Academic Skills Coach and Lecturer for Law. She has worked in various Higher Education and Further Education settings. Kelly’s expertise in Academic Practice and Educational Development is something she offers as part of her consultancy packages.
Her research interests stem from her work on her MA in Education on critical thinking. She is a firm advocate for reflection and research project planning with further interests in ethics in education and researcher positionality. Alongside her education practice, Kelly is a Doctoral Researcher. She is also a professional photographer and a painting and drawing enthusiast.
Dr Robert Thomas
Dr. Thomas is currently a Lecturer (Marketing) at Aston Business School. Dr. Thomas’s primary research interests and publications encompass Brand Management, specifically the areas associated with sponsorship, fandom, co-creation, and brand community. His work has been published the European Journal of Marketing, Computers in Human Behavior, Journal of Marketing Management, Journal of Product and Brand Management, Young Consumers, Strategic Change: Briefings in Entrepreneurial Finance, and IEEE Transactions on Engineering Management. Dr. Thomas sits on the editorial boards for Journal of Product and Brand Management and International Journal of Sport Management and Marketing, winning reviewer of the year for Journal of Product and Brand Management in 2015.
Dr Helen Kara
Dr Helen Kara FAcSS has been an independent researcher since 1999 and an independent scholar since 2011. She writes about research methods and research ethics, and teaches doctoral students and staff at higher education institutions worldwide. Her books include Qualitative Research for Quantitative Researchers and four books in the Sage Little Quick Fix series. Helen also writes comics and fiction. In 2021, at the age of 56, she was diagnosed autistic. Her neurodiversity explains her lifelong special interest in, and ability to focus on, words, language, and writing.
Dr Eric Addae-Kyeremeh
Dr Eric Addae-Kyeremeh is the Head of School in the School of Education, Childhood, Youth and Sport at Open University. Eric has over 20 years of professional experience that involves teaching, research, scholarship of teaching and learning, knowledge exchange, consultancy and public engagement. He was admitted into Fellowship by BCS, The Chartered Institute for IT in 2012 for demonstrating leadership, eminence and authority in the area of educational technologies. In recognition of his expertise, significant impact and contribution to leadership and management in education and training, he was awarded Chartered Fellowship by the Chartered Management Institute (CMI) in the same year.
Prior to joining the Open University in 2011, Eric worked in the Further Education (FE) sector in England from 2000-2010, firstly as a lecturer in Computing and ICT and then in a range of leadership and management positions. During his career in FE, he led and managed a number of subject areas, including Science and Mathematics; Information and Communication Technology; and Business, Administration and Law.
Dr. Eleni Papadonikolaki
Dr. Eleni Papadonikolaki is a Management Consultant and Associate Professor in Digital Innovation and Management at the Bartlett School of Sustainable Construction (BSSC) at University College London (UCL). Eleni is teaching at postgraduate and executive levels and leads the newly-launched MSc in Digital Engineering Management (DEM) and is a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (SFHEA).
Her research interests lie at the intersection of management, projects, social science, and digital economy. Prior to joining academia, Eleni worked as an architect-engineer and design manager on a number of complex, international and varying-scale projects in Greece, the Netherlands, Oman and the United Arab Emirates. She is an alumna of TU Delft, Netherlands and NTUA, Greece.
Dr. Alessandra Vigilante
Dr. Alessandra Vigilante is a Senior Lecturer in Bioinformatics at the Center for Stem Cells and Regenerative Medicine with a focus on genotype-phenotype interactions and data integration. Alessandra obtained her PhD in Bioinformatics in Naples (2008-2011) before moving to the UK to join the Nicholas Luscombe group first at the EMBL-European Bioinformatics Institute as a visiting student (2011-2012) and then as a postdoctoral fellow at UCL (2012-2017).
Alessandra Vigilante’s group has significant expertise and experience in the analysis and integration of large scale genomic, epigenomic and transcriptomic data (i.e. single-cell RNA-seq and ATAC-seq datasets, ChIP-seq etc…), and in the implementation of novel computational methods for various bespoke analyses to gain biological insights.She is actively involved in a great network of collaborations to develop multidisciplinary approaches to research efforts, working with faculty members within King’s and other research institutes.
Professor Roger Watt
Roger Watt was a Professor of Psychology at the University of Stirling for 32 years and is now Emeritus Professor there. He has done research and taught in many areas of psychology, and focussed in the second half of his career on teaching research methods. Before moving to Stirling he was a Scientist with the Medical Research Council in Cambridge. In 1995 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh for his scientific research and leadership in Psychology.
In teaching Statistics at Stirling to psychology students, he introduced a number of innovations, including novel methods of delivery some of which contributed to Stirling being attracting the inaugural BPS Award for Innovation in Psychology Programmes in 2014.
He has a long-standing involvement in the impact of his discipline and research. He was appointed as an expert witness for the Cullen Inquiry and was personally credited with establishing the most likely cause of the Ladbroke Grove train disaster. During his time at Stirling, he was twice the Head of Department in Psychology and was also Dean of Human Sciences for 4 years. He is the proudest grandfather on the planet and is also an amateur trumpet player, baker and gardener.
Maria K. E. Lahman
Maria K. E. Lahman, is a professor of qualitative methodology at the University of Northern Colorado, in Colorado, USA. She is the author of the Sage textbooks Ethics in Social Science Research: Becoming Culturally Responsive and Writing and Representing Qualitative Research. Maria challenges herself to weave aspects of social justice and peacebuilding into her pedagogy and scholarship. Maria's scholarship is focused on creating ethical solutions for culturally complex methodological situations, diversity, young children, mothering, and qualitative writing representation.
Sarah Morris
Sarah is a librarian, educator, and curriculum designer whose work focuses on critical information and media literacy, misinformation, civic engagement, student success, and library and information science education. She has held positions at Loyola University Chicago, the University of Texas, and served as the Head of Instruction and Engagement at the Emory University Libraries. Sarah has worked on curriculum projects with partners that include the Mozilla Foundation and the Carter Center. She currently works as an instructional designer and consultant and is pursuing her PhD in Communication and Information Sciences from the University of Alabama.
Paul Silvia
Paul is the Lucy Spinks Keker Excellence Professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, USA, where he teaches graduate-level statistics and research methods. His research explores the psychology of creativity and the arts, such as how people come up with good ideas and what makes art interesting and appealing. He has written many books, including Exploring the Psychology of Interest and How to Write A Lot.