2nd Annual Conference on Politics and Computational Social Science (PaCSS)
DATE: WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 28
LOCATION: GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY
GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY HOTEL & CONFERENCE CENTER, WASHINGTON, D.C.
CONFERENCE DESCRIPTION
The data and methodologies available to social scientists have exploded with the emergence of vast archives of passive data collection, large scale online experimentation, and innovative uses of simulation. These data are of a larger magnitude and methods are of a greater computational complexity than approaches that have dominated political science for the last 50 years.
This offers the potential for rich insights into society at scale, while simultaneously introducing new ethical and infrastructural challenges. In parallel, the information and communication technologies that have driven these changes are also driving changes in politics, around the world, that require study.
In order to understand the political world, it is increasingly important to gain access to the political communication and behavior occurring online. This preconference gathering will offer a forum for political science research in this emerging space. Example relevant topics/approaches include: analysis of social media; text analysis; use of finely granular geographic data; large scale online experimentation.
Scholars from all subfields of political science are welcome, as are researchers in other relevant disciplines, such as computer science, sociology, and physics. The meeting will take place 9am-5pm on Wednesday, August 28th at Georgetown University.
Everyone who wishes to attend should apply. We welcome applications to present, discuss or simply participate. We recognize that strength comes through diversity, and actively seek, welcome, and encourage people with diverse backgrounds, experiences, and identities to apply and attend.
This will be a one day conference with a keynote by Sandra González-Bailón of the University of Pennsylvania. A wide range of subjects for presentations are welcome, including purely methodologically oriented presentations or applications thereof; synthesis/overviews of research; discussions of ethics and/or data infrastructures; and so on. Papers are not required.
PaCSS welcomes a diverse, multi-disciplinary audience with expertise in a range of subjects and methods. Thank you for helping us build a welcoming and encouraging scholarly community of respectful, cross-disciplinary exchange.
Register for the conference at our registration page. Registration is $50 before August 12, 2019 and $100 after that. Seating is limited, so please register early to ensure space. The conference includes breakfast, lunch, coffee, snacks and a reception with bar and hors d’ oeuvres.
Pew Research Center is pleased to host two parallel training workshops (see side navigation bar, if link does not work in your browser) at their office in downtown D.C. These workshops will focus on two key areas: 1) natural language (NLP) processing techniques and their application to social science questions; and 2) deep learning techniques with applications to image analysis for social scientists. Participants will be given hands-on experience building and training models in these subject areas and will also be able to meet members of Pew Research Center’s Data Labs team. Workshops will run from 2pm to 5pm Tuesday August 27. Light snacks and coffee will be provided. Cost per participant is $25.
PACSS 2019 is sponsored by the McCourt School of Public Policy Data Science for Public Policy Program, the Office of Provost Robert Groves, Georgetown University and Sage Publishing and the Pew Research Center.
Previous Conference: 2018 PaCSS at Northeastern
Georgetown Programs: Massive Data Institute | Master of Science in Data Science for Public Policy