I'm excited to be invited to present some of my work November 5 at Georgetown University's Center for Australian, New Zealand and Pacific Studies - here's some info, I think it'll be a fun talk!
Research
My research, upcoming papers, and archives of presentations for the crowd to comment on
Big News: The GDELT Global Dashboard
GDELT just released their new Global Visualization dashboard, and it's pretty cool. It blinks and flashes, glows and pulses, and is really interesting to navigate. Naturally, as a social scientist who studies conflict, I have some thoughts. 1) This is really cool. The user interface is attractive, it's easy to navigate, and it's intuitive. I … Continue reading Big News: The GDELT Global Dashboard
Quick thoughts from the #Tech4PP Twitter chat
I followed (and even participated!) in NDI's Twitter chat today on using technology to increase political party and electoral participation. If you're interested you can find the thread by searching the hashtag '#Tech4PP'. There were a lot of good examples of tech being used to increase participation, make processes more transparent, and boost inclusion in the … Continue reading Quick thoughts from the #Tech4PP Twitter chat
Rigor Versus Reality: Balancing the field with the lab
I am finally able to respond (add) to a post by Chris Moore about the problem of mathematicization and formalization of political science, and social science more generally, as it relates to how the social sciences inform real policy issues. As I'm finishing a Fulbright fellowship in Samoa, where I worked specifically on research supporting policy … Continue reading Rigor Versus Reality: Balancing the field with the lab
MCIT/NUS ICTs in Emergency Survey: Replication data
I spent the last two months managing a research collaboration between Samoa's Ministry of Communications and Information Technology (MCIT) and the National University of Samoa, collecting nation wide data on how people use information and information technology to respond to natural disasters. This data will feed into my dissertation, as well as be useful to … Continue reading MCIT/NUS ICTs in Emergency Survey: Replication data
Call for abstracts! Proposed ISA panel on Crowdsourcing and Violence
My colleague Dr. Pamina Firchow and I are organizing a panel for next year's ISA meeting in New Orleans (Feb. 15-21, 2015) on crowdsourcing and the study of violence and violence prevention. Below you'll find our panel description, and instructions for submitting an abstract to us. We'll need them by May 23 so we can make … Continue reading Call for abstracts! Proposed ISA panel on Crowdsourcing and Violence
Learnings from ISA
Another March, another ISA conference. 2014 has been good, especially since the networking and socializing was matched by excellent feedback on what I presented. The highlights: What I thought was a failed experiment in getting Twitter to love me actually teased out some interesting methodological challenges that other panelists on the Crowdsourcing Violence panel faced. … Continue reading Learnings from ISA
Laying over, all over
I'll be headed to the ISA conference in Toronto tonight, and since I'm coming from the South Pacific the journey will be full of layovers long and short. If you are in: - Auckland, New Zealand! I will be there tomorrow all day and all day on April 1 wandering the streets and looking at things. … Continue reading Laying over, all over
Kristof, Columbia, and the ‘Public Intellectual-Professor’: Part 2
Earlier this week I wrote the first half of this pair of posts, focusing on the problems in Nicholas Kristof's piece on why professors should be more engaged in the public debate. I came down pretty hard on it, not because I disagree with the general sentiment (my doctoral research and interests are very policy … Continue reading Kristof, Columbia, and the ‘Public Intellectual-Professor’: Part 2
Kristof, Columbia, and the ‘Public Intellectual-Professor’: Part 1
This will be a two-parter since there's a lot in it. It's been interesting reading the initial article about why professors need to be involved in public debate from Nicholas Kristof and seeing the rejoinders, particularly Michelle Goldbergs' article about Columbia University's decision to let two of their best professors of public health go. I'm … Continue reading Kristof, Columbia, and the ‘Public Intellectual-Professor’: Part 1
Charles P. Martin-Shields 