Public Interest Technology – Data Science Corps

Projects – Summer 2022

Local Friendly (App)

Local Friendly is a mobile app designed to help people all pedestrians, including their caregivers, delivery people, and shoppers laden with bags and packages, move around their NYC neighborhoods by showing them detailed accessibility data about their destinations and the safest and the best route to getting there.

• Graduate Mentor: Nan Zhang 
• Interns: Crystal Diaz, Angelo Gjoni, Raony Nadal, Aditi Chatradhi, and Daniel Luce

York College (Burial)

Indigent burials have been increasing in recent decades. An indigent burial occurs when a decedent or his or her family is unable to pay for traditional funeral services. Costs are covered by local governments, and remains may be placed in mass graves, cremated, or donated to science. New York City’s Hart Island is one famous example. The objective is to build a database on indigent burials that can be used both by researchers and the general public 

• Graduate Mentor: Baochan Jiang 
• Interns: Bryan Brugal, Sovira Chaudhry, Lara Karacasu, Simon Ogundare, and Abdur-Rasheed Syed 

Brooklyn Community Boards 4 & 14 (Empower)

Using existing data science to analyze, create and empower community districts in Brooklyn. 

• Graduate Mentor: Katrina Gross
• Interns: Samira Kamal, Holden Li, Emily Mendez, David Raharijao and Jocelyn Rajaballey

George Mason University (Rats)

New York City’s rat problem is infamous. The problem has garnered so much attention that the city has held several hearings, developed a comprehensive extermination plan, and even convened a summit on the issue. While the true population of rats in New York City (NYC) is unknown, urban legend states that there are as many rats as people: roughly 8 million. But are there really this many rats in NYC?

• Graduate Mentors: Shanyue Zeng & Owen Ward, Ph.D.
• Interns: Chris Andrade, Icaro Andrade, Angela Tan, and Mariana Vazquez

New York Housing Authority – Capital Projects | Sustainability Programs (Zero Waste) 

NYCHA’s capital program represents an opportunity to deepen our sustainability policies and shift toward a more circular or closed-loop economy where recovered construction and demolition waste (CDW) becomes a potential resource for NYCHA capital projects by increasing direct re-use of recoverable CDW within their capital programs and a resource for construction material manufacturers by actively increasing indirect re-use of recoverable CDW through interim processing to increase feedstock for these manufacturers of new construction materials.

• Graduate Mentor: Xu Rong
• Interns: Elijah Fullerton, Mario Richards, Mohammed Sameer-Uddin, and Darian Taylor

Program Leadership 

Faculty Advisors: 

• Jonathan L. Auerbach, George Mason University 
• Jennifer Laird, Lehman College
• Daniel Rabinowitz, Columbia University 
• David Rios, Columbia University 
• Elin Waring, Lehman College
• Tian Zheng, Columbia University

Graduate Mentoring Coaches:

• Zi Fang, MA
• Owen Ward, Ph.D.

Program Coordinator : 

• Zammy Diaz Lebron