Date & Time:
May 9, 2024 3:30 pm – 4:30 pm
Location:
KPTC 120
05/09/2024 03:30 PM 05/09/2024 04:30 PM America/Chicago Moon Duchin (Tufts University) – Design for Democracy KPTC 120

Abstract: Today, U.S. democracy faces a suite of technology-enhanced challenges based on vast amounts of fine-grained data and increasingly sophisticated attacks. However, computing and technology are also part of the solution. In this talk I’ll look at computational interventions to support democracy and voting rights, in particular in the area of fair political districting. I’ll discuss projects that touch many areas of CS and related fields, including mathematical modeling of the law, the design and analysis of efficient algorithms, mechanism design and fairness, data privacy, computational geometry, data visualization, and software development. I will focus on the story of purpose-built algorithms to meet a conceptual need in the law: the “baseline problem” of understanding how voting systems perform in the absence of manipulation. For redistricting in particular, MCMC and other graph partitioning methods raise deep mathematical questions. Beyond districting, finding baselines points the way to a research program on designing modern electoral systems better aligned with ideals of representative democracy.

Speakers

Moon Duchin

Professor of Mathematics and John DiBiaggio Professor of Citizenship and Public Service

Moon Duchin is a professor of mathematics and the John DiBiaggio professor of Citizenship and Public Service at Tufts University, where she runs a research lab focused on data science for civic applications. Her areas of mathematical expertise are in groups, geometry, and dynamical systems. Her lab has developed mathematical modeling techniques with applications to political processes, especially a randomized spanning tree method for efficient graph partitioning that is now widely used in the study of redistricting.

Dr. Duchin has served as an expert in state and federal courts in Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Texas, and Alabama. Her work featured centrally in last term’s big voting rights case in Alabama, where it was amply cited in both the majority opinion and the dissents at the Supreme Court. Her lab’s open-source software packages for community mapping have played a role in assisting governmental and citizens’ groups in dozens of states and cities.

Dr. Duchin received her PhD in Mathematics from the University of Chicago in 2005, advised by Alex Eskin. She has held an NSF CAREER grant, a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Radcliffe Fellowship, and was elected a Fellow of the American Mathematical Society in 2017.

Related News & Events

UChicago CS News

UChicago Partners On New National Science Foundation Large-Scale Research Infrastructure For Education

Dec 10, 2024
UChicago CS News

Saturdays with CSIL — How Undergraduates are Transforming CS Education for Local High School Students

Dec 05, 2024
UChicago CS News

UChicago Researchers Receive Google Privacy Faculty Award for Research on AI Privacy Risks

Nov 22, 2024
UChicago CS News

The Climate App Designed to Tackle Chatham’s Flooding Crisis

Nov 21, 2024
In the News

Globus Receives Multiple Honors in 2024 HPCwire Readers’ and Editors’ Choice Awards

Nov 20, 2024
In the News

Argonne Team Breaks New Ground in AI-Driven Protein Design

Nov 15, 2024
UChicago CS News

DOE Awards Fred Chong and his National Research Team $7.5M to Develop a SMART Software Stack to Control Quantum Computer Noise

Nov 12, 2024
UChicago CS News

CS/LSSG Showcases Sustainability Research and Education

Nov 11, 2024
UChicago CS News

Ph.D. Student Jibang Wu Receives the Stigler Center Ph.D. Dissertation Award for His Work Modeling the Incentive Structures of Reward and Recommendation–Based Systems

Oct 24, 2024
UChicago CS News

Rebecca Willett Receives the SIAM Activity Group on Data Science Career Prize

Oct 23, 2024
UChicago CS News

UChicago CS Researchers Shine at UIST 2024 with Papers, Posters, Workshops and Demonstrations

Oct 10, 2024
UChicago CS News

UChicago Scientists Receive Grant to Expand Global Data Management Platform, Globus

Oct 03, 2024
arrow-down-largearrow-left-largearrow-right-large-greyarrow-right-large-yellowarrow-right-largearrow-right-smallbutton-arrowclosedocumentfacebookfacet-arrow-down-whitefacet-arrow-downPage 1CheckedCheckedicon-apple-t5backgroundLayer 1icon-google-t5icon-office365-t5icon-outlook-t5backgroundLayer 1icon-outlookcom-t5backgroundLayer 1icon-yahoo-t5backgroundLayer 1internal-yellowinternalintranetlinkedinlinkoutpauseplaypresentationsearch-bluesearchshareslider-arrow-nextslider-arrow-prevtwittervideoyoutube