From the evening of Sunday, June 16 to the morning of Saturday, June 29, 2019, the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation sponsored a partner site in Boston for the Summer Institute in Computational Social Science. The purpose of the Summer Institute was to bring together graduate students, postdoctoral researchers, and beginning faculty interested in computational social science. The Summer Institute was for both social scientists (broadly conceived) and data scientists (broadly conceived).
The site was organized by former participants of the 2018 SICSS workshop and featured live streams of the primary location at Princeton in addition to local speakers. In the afternoons of the first week, participants at the Boston location were able to work in teams to learn how to implement the material from the lecture. In the second week, participants joined teams to develop a research project related to computational social science.
There were ample opportunities for students to discuss their ideas and research with the organizers, other participants, and visiting speakers. The goal of this partner location was to build and expand the network of computational social scientists in the Boston area.
We invited applications from Ph.D. students, postdoctoral researchers, and untenured faculty within 7 years of their Ph.D. Meals were provided during the workshop and we expect to invite about twenty participants. Participants with less experience with social science research were expected to complete additional readings in advance of the Institute, and participants with less experience coding were expected to complete a set of online learning modules on the R programming language. Students doing this preparatory work were supported by a teaching assistant who held online office hours before the Institute.
Application materials were due on Friday, April 12, 2019. We can no longer accept new applications. There is no cost to participating in the Boston workshop.
All events were held at:
50 Ames Street
Building E18-304
Cambridge, MA 02142
Sponsors
We are grateful to Alfred P. Sloan Foundation for their sponsorship of the partner site. We also thank MIT’s IDSS for providing the space and the Questrom School of Business at Boston University for additional funding. We look forward to announcing additional sponsors for this partner location in the coming months.
