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    • Degrees Without Limits
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About Us
C+M Silver Center Team
Our Definition of Data Science
Funded Projects
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Constance and Martin Silver Center on Data Science and Social Equity

About Us

Text reading "Constance and Martin Silver Center on Data Science and Social Equity" against a purple and aqua background with the NYU Silver logo in the bottom left and an image of a 3D sphere comprised of lines and dots in the bottom right.

The Constance and Martin Silver Center on Data Science and Social Equity (C+M Silver Center) supports scholarship and early development of innovations in the field of data science for social equity impact, including studies harnessing big data and using artificial intelligence. In order to leverage the growing availability and complexity of such data, the C+M Silver Center helps to develop and nurture the scientific skill set of NYU Silver faculty, doctoral students, and researchers. The Center aligns with the Grand Challenges for Social Work challenge to Harness Technology for Social Good.

Marty and Connie Silver wearing academic attire

The C+M Silver Center was established in June 2021 as part of a visionary $16 million gift from Dr. Constance and Martin Silver to NYU Silver to harness the emerging power of big data to identify the root causes of society’s most pressing challenges and achieve broad and transformational social impact. In addition to funding the C+M Silver Center, that gift included $5 million for the NYU McSilver Institute for Poverty Policy and Research to establish an Artificial Intelligence Hub, and funded the establishment of an Endowed Professorship in Data Science and Prevention at NYU Silver. 

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C+M Silver Center Team

Marya Gwadz, PhD, Interim Center Director 

Amanda Ritchie, Director of Center Operations

Charles Cleland, PhD, Methodologist/statistician 

 

Center Launch Committee: Charles Cleland, PhD, Neil Guterman, PhD, James Jaccard, PhD, Ramesh Raghavan, PhD

 

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Our Definition of Data Science

The C+M Silver Center defines data science broadly, including the following specific domains:

o Data systems such as “big data” (large, unstructured collections of data high in volume,  variety, or velocity) 

o Data visualization 

o Efficient processing of unstructured data 

o Artificial intelligence (including an anti-racist and equitable approach to A.I., queer A.I., “emancipatory A.I.”) 

o Deep learning (neural networks, etc.) 

o Machine learning and other predictive modeling (including identifying and ameliorating racial  bias in machine learning algorithms) 

o Machine perception and sensing 

o Natural language processing 

o Translational data science 

o Geospatial computation

o The ethics of data science 

o Data science with human service populations 

o Integration of data science with digital technologies 

o Development of data-driven apps to address significant social problems

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Funded Projects

Principal Investigator: Dr. Victoria Stanhope (PI), Professor, NYU Silver School of Social Work.

Collaborators: Dr. Elizabeth Matthews, Dr. Sarah Shugars

Dates of award: 9/1/2021 – 8/31/2022

Amount of award: $70,500

Study description: Service disengagement is a persistent and widespread problem within the mental health system. One solution for the problem of service disengagement is to deliver person-centered care (PCC), which ensures that care is individualized and service users are active empowered partners in their treatment. This study will use an innovative artificial intelligence approach to examine Collaborative Documentation, a strategy to promote PCC in behavioral health clinics in which clinicians complete visit notes jointly with consumers during the session. The study will use natural language processing, a text mining technique that translates narrative text to structured data using an algorithm to analyze clinical visit notes. This research study will contribute to the evidence base on Collaborative Documentation and develop an algorithm to analyze PCC to inform quality improvement in behavioral health care.

Principal Investigator: Dr. Doris F. Chang, Associate Professor, NYU Silver School of Social Work.

Collaborators: Dr. Sumie Okazaki, Dr. Thu T. Nguyen, Dr. Maureen Craig

Dates of award: 9/1/2021 – 8/31/2022

Amount of award: $56,000

Study description: Anti-Asian violence and harassment have escalated during the Covid-19 pandemic, catalyzed by the racial framing of the virus, and converging with a national awakening to systematic racism following the death of George Floyd. Consistent with prior research on racism and mental health, Covid-related discrimination is associated with poorer mental health outcomes in diverse Asian American samples (Cheah et al., 2021; Stop AAPI Hate Mental Health Report, 2021). However, studies rarely consider how macro-contextual factors such as ambient racial climate (including negative views of other racial groups) and community characteristics affect racialized individuals’ psychosocial experiences, intergroup relations, and collective actions aimed at addressing racial inequality. The main aim of this study is to examine how regional variations in racial climate (as indicated by sentiment analysis of geocoded Twitter data of anti-Asian and anti-Black bias as well as solidarity and allyship across racial groups) are associated with three sets of outcomes: a) racial discrimination and mental  health, b) intergroup attitudes (structural awareness, sense of belonging, political commonality/coalitional attitudes), and c) collective action and coalitional support (own-group benevolent support and political activism, Asian-Black allyship behaviors). Taking into account the diverse immigration histories and discrimination experiences of these groups, analyses will determine how regional public discourse about race affects well-being, intergroup attitudes, and collective action. The study will also examine how regional variations in residential segregation/integration and income inequality reflect community contexts for intergroup conflict, cooperation and competition (Tajfel, 1982), and may be associated with the same three sets of outcomes. Understanding the multi-level factors that shape Asian Americans’ individual and intergroup responses to racism, and subsequent civic and political engagement has important implications for community well-being and intergroup solidarity, and shaping a more inclusive, equitable, and democratic society.

Principal Investigator: Dr. Ernest Gonzales, Associate Professor and MSW Program Director, NYU Silver School of Social Work

Collaborators: Dr. Yi Wang, Dr. Forrest Bao, Cliff Whetung, and Natalie Green

Dates of award: 3/23/2022 – 2/28/2023

Amount of award: $10,000. Dean's Research Fund and C+M Silver Center

Study description: 

Cognitive impairment is a worldwide epidemic and its effects are borne disproportionately by minoritized groups in the United States. Yet, nearly a third of all dementia cases can be prevented and equity is within reach. Longitudinal and experimental studies have identified important predictors to bolster cognitive functioning and brain structure. Machine learning is a novel statistical method that has rarely been utilized with predicting cognitive functioning in later life. While this method holds tremendous promise to interrogate and confirm existing theory, there are also significant ethical and methodological concerns that arise within the context of structural racism. Utilizing 14 years of data from a large representative sample of 15,385 older adult respondents to the Health and Retirement Study (2006-2020), and guided by minority stress theory, this study will compare and contrast traditional statistical approaches with that of machine learning to examine risk and protective factors to cognitive health. The findings from this study will inform methodological innovations to better understand cognitive impairment and socio-environmental factors, and will contribute to the development of theory and knowledge to inform health care policy and practices.

Principal Investigator: Dr. Michelle Munson, Professor, NYU Silver School of Social Work

Collaborators: Dr. Sadiq Patel (Harvard University), Dr. Molly Finnerty (NYU Grossman School of Medicine/New York State Office of Mental Health), Dr. Deborah Layman (New York State Office of Mental Health/Research Foundation for Mental Hygiene), Qingxian Chen (New York State Office of Mental Health)

Dates of award: 9/1/2022 – 8/31/2023

Amount of award: $70,000

Study description: 

The Covid-19 pandemic laid bare gaps in our healthcare system, and young adult behavioral health is among our most challenging crises. When there is unequal availability and utilization of mental health services in communities, there will be great divides in life outcomes. Support for this project will catapult a team from the Silver School of Social Work, the Grossman School of Medicine and the New York State Office of Mental Health (NYSOMH) who together will harness ‘big data’ to begin to address the unmet mental health need among young adults. Specifically, the project will leverage the PSYCKES platform’s large integrated mental health and Medicaid claims database, to identify ‘hotspot’ communities of need, where there are high rates of young adults with serious mental illness and low levels of utilization of professional services. Our project will use both statistical and machine learning methods to identify ‘drivers’ of mental health care. Findings will inform future research to reduce social inequities among some of New York’s most disadvantaged citizens. To that end, our team will use project findings as the groundwork for grant applications in partnership with the emergent communities, and to advance consumer- facing technologies such as ‘MyCHOIS’, a system that provides direct access and messaging for patients to their health information and real-time resources in moments of need. Finally, results will inform state leadership in their policy and program efforts to address gaps in services.

Principal Investigator: Dr. Neil Guterman, Professor, NYU Silver School of Social Work

Collaborators: Dr. Jennifer Bellamy, Dr. Aaron Banman, and Dr. Justin Harty

Dates of award: 9/21/2022 – 8/31/2023

Amount of award: $20,000

Study description: 

Parents’ early verbal engagement in the home is essential to young children’s cognitive development, learning preparedness, and healthy psychosocial development. While much is known about the role of mother-infant interactions in the home, the role that fathers play in the well-being of their young children is understudied. This research project will employ a highly innovative language analysis technology guided by artificial intelligence-based models to analyze over 3,000 hours of audio-recorded interactions between parents and babies, with verbal and self-reported data from biological fathers and mothers in a predominantly Latinx and African American sample of families living in the greater Chicago metropolitan area.  Analyses will examine father-child as well as mother-child interactions (e.g., word counts, vocalizations, conversational turns) and explore how these interactions are linked with and predict such factors as the quality of the mother-father relationship, the attainment of the child’s developmental milestones, and physical child abuse and neglect risk. Findings from this study will lay the groundwork for larger research proposals to apply data science methods that explore the role of fathers in early childhood development and help predict risk of child abuse and neglect.

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News

  • C+M Silver Center to Host Summer Institute in Computational Social Science

  • PhD Student Gahwan Yoo Named C+M Silver Center Pre-Doctoral Fellow

  • C+M Silver Center FY 2023 Request for Proposals

  • Silver Center on Data Center and Social Equity Awards Faculty Research Grant to Team Led by Dr. Michelle R. Munson

  • Technology Trends: Keep a Wary Eye on Artificial Intelligence (Social Work Today op-ed)

  • Silver Center on Data Science and Social Equity Awards Inaugural Faculty Research Grants

  • Bringing Data Science to Social Work

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Events

Past Events

C+M Silver Center Speaker Series: Dr. Merlin Chowkwanyun on Community Health, Environmental Activism, and Racial Justice: Leveraging Technology for Public Good

On September 12, 2022, the C+M Silver Center hosted Dr. Merlin Chowkwanyun, the Donald H. Gemson Assistant Professor of Sociomedical Sciences at the Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health. He is also a core faculty member of the University's Center for History and Ethics of Public Health, an affiliate of the History department and the Data Science Institute, and PI on the NSF-funded project, ToxicDocs.org, a depository of once-secret documents on industrial poisons.

Dr. Chowkwanyun's work examines the history of community health, environmental health regulation, racial inequality, and social movement/activism around health. His newest book is All Health Politics is Local: Community Battles over Medical Care and Environmental Health.

C+M Silver Center Speaker Series: Dr. Eric Rice on Data Science, Prevention, Equity, and Social Work: Case Studies in HIV Prevention and Housing Interventions for Homeless Youth

On February 4, 2022, the C+M Silver Center and NYU Silver PhD Program Research Lecture Series (DPRLS) co-hosted a virtual speaker event showcasing scholarship in the field of data science for social equity impact. The keynote speaker was Dr. Eric Rice, Associate Professor at USC Suzanne Dworak-Peck School of Social Work and Founding Co-Director of the USC Center for Artificial Intelligence in Society. Dr. Rice spoke about his work merging social work science and AI to identify novel and equitable solutions to major social problems such as homelessness and HIV..

Watch the Video of Dr. Rice’s Lecture

C+M Silver Center Virtual Inaugural Event

On November 22, 2021, NYU Silver’s Constance and Martin Silver Center on Data Science and Social Equity held its Virtual Inaugural Event. NYU Silver Dean Neil B. Guterman and Associate Dean for Research and Interim Center Director Marya Gwadz introduced the Center’s work and vision for data science, social work, and social equity. Keynote speaker Desmond Upton Patton, Associate Dean for Innovation and Academic Affairs, founding director of the SAFE Lab, and co-director of the Justice, Equity and Technology lab at Columbia School of Social Work, discussed ways to advance knowledge and transform practice at the intersection of Artificial Intelligence, empathy, race, equity, and society. 

Watch the Video of the Inaugural Event

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Virtual Library

C+M Silver Center staff are continually curating relevant scholarship for researchers interested in data science and social equity.

Access the Virtual Library
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Contact

Constance and Martin Silver Center on Data Science and Social Equity

Address: 15 Washington Place, 1st Floor, New York, NY 10003

Phone: 212.992.7186

Email: silver.cmscenter@nyu.edu

Twitter: @CMSCenterNYU

 

 

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