Description

The Technology Science Team, led by Harvard Professor Latanya Sweeney, is hosting a summer research fellowship to work on projects that explore and expose the unforeseen consequences of technology. Fellows will work with Technology Science researchers tackle problems in the public interest such as privacy, political advertising, elections, re-identification, and discrimination.

Former Technology Science fellows and students have successfully identified vulnerabilities in voter registration websites, helped change Facebook’s data collection policies, pushed health insurance companies to examine their reporting requirements, and exposed the “Tiger Mom Tax” from Princeton Review’s SAT tutoring service. Check out the Journal of Technology Science for more information.

 

Projects

As a Summer Research Fellow, you will have the opportunity to work on the following projects:

• Conduct re-identification experiments on environmental health studies. This involves re-identifying data subjects in health data believed to be anonymous using publicly available data

• Investigate the effect of state election policies, including voter registration websites and registration deadlines, on the election franchise

• Analyze misinformation and disenfranchisement operations on Twitter and Facebook. Map the social network of Twitter users (and bots) to analyze communication across and within social networks

• Build a tool to uncover any efforts of misinformation campaigns through internet ads. Develop software to track the political and non-political ads individuals receive

• Examine how more than 2 million political ads targeting American voters online are shaping American democracy. Students will work on programming the infrastructure and interface for the Political Ads Library website and analyzing a rich dataset of text, images, and videos of political messages from more than 70,000 advertisers

 

Qualifications

Basic qualifications:

• Strong academic background in undergraduate or graduate studies

• Basic social science knowledge (e.g. economics, political science, sociology), public policy, statistics, or computer science

• Ability to work independently and in team settings

• Strong communication and writing skills in producing research reports

Other qualifications for specific project needs:

• Previous research experience in data collection and analysis techniques from coursework or employment. Students without prior research experience may also apply

• Programming knowledge in data analysis, visualization, web scraping, and web design (any language)

We highly encourage students from underrepresented groups and minorities to apply. Unfortunately, we currently cannot accept international applicants who need visa sponsorship, but please contact Ji Su (jisuyoo@fas.harvard.edu) if you have any questions.