This is a presentation I gave at the 2018 Annual Conference of the American Society for Cybernetics. I won the Heinz von Foerster Award for the innovative research.
I hope you enjoy.
Category: Data Science and Machine Learning
Anthropology by Data Science: The EPIC Project with Indicia Consulting as an Exploratory Case Study
This is my practicum report with Indicia Consulting. In lieu of a master’s thesis, the University of Memphis Department of Anthropology required that we master’s students conduct a practicum project. For this, we had to partner with an organization and complete a 300+ hour anthropological research project based on the organization’s needs and our skills and interests. My practicum project was Indicia’s EPIC Project with the California Energy Commission (see this link and this link for more details on the EPIC Project). In this report, I outline potential ways to integrate ethnographic/anthropological and data science research in professional settings.
In November 2019, the American Anthropological Association’s Committee for the Anthropology of Science, Technology, and Computing (CASTAC) awarded me the David Hakken Graduate Student Prize for innovative science and technology scholarship.
Full Report:
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Open in new tab The Anthropology Department also required that you publicly present your practicum research to the University of Memphis campus. This PowerPoint summarizes my practicum project. If you are not keen to read the 99 page full report, this is a much shorter alternative:
If you are interested in learning more about the project, please check out the following:
- Indicia Consulting’s Final Research Report with the California Energy Commission
- My Presentation at the 2019 Memphis Data Conference for Data Scientists Specifically
Computerized Knowledge Production: Machine Learning Models as Social Actors
The following is a presentation I gave at the Society for Applied Anthropology’s 2018 annual conference in Philadelphia, PA. In it, I describe how I think anthropologists should understand, analyze, and relate to machine learning and data science.
Final Report of EPIC Project with Indicia Consulting
I oversaw the statistical and data science research for the EPIC research project for Indicia Consulting, which the California Energy Commission (California’s name for their department of energy) commissioned. After several years of work, we published this report describing the project.
Here is a downloadable version as well:
For more context, on the California Energy Commission’s wider research goals in this project, feel free to check this out as well.
Working on the project was amazing, and I am proud to have been a part of it. Thank you Susan Mazur-Stommen and Haley Gilbert in particular for organizing everything.