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Civic Data & Technology Clinic

Since 2020, the Civic Data and Technology Clinic has launched fourteen clinic projects with external social impact organizations. These organizations support local communities through four key impact areas: food and agriculture, energy, human rights, and marine technology. The projects provided practical educational experiences to 47 students, in addition to two teaching assistants. Individual projects were scoped to last 10 weeks with students submitting final code changes and a 10 minute presentation video at the end of the quarter. Other deliverables included production code shared with the external clients, research papers, and the development of public facing web applications. In our inaugural year we supported projects of varying maturity, difficulty, and timeline requirements (1-4 quarters).

Project partners include Eureka Recycling, FracTracker Alliance, Hohonu, Inclusive Development International, Schmidt Ocean Institute, and United Nations Human Rights.

The Civic Data & Technology Clinic is funded by 11th Hour Project and the Public Interest Technology University Network (PIT-UN). Read more about the clinic here.

Civic Data & Technology Clinic Staff

Tim Hannifan is Assistant Clinic Director for the Data Science Institute at the University of Chicago. He is responsible for managing the execution of an experiential learning program for University students, recruiting and retaining data science partner organizations, and mentoring student teams to implement data science solutions for government, industry, and social impact organizations. Prior to joining the DSI, Tim worked on data science initiatives at Mathematica Policy Research and The World Bank. He holds a MS in Computational Analysis and Public Policy and a BA in Economics from the University of Chicago.

Nick Ross is an experienced data science executive with significant leadership experience in both industry and academic settings. Nick has successfully built and managed data science teams at companies ranging from small startups to multinational corporations, and he continues to advise organizations on all things data and engineering.  Before joining The University of Chicago, he led the data science and backend engineering teams at an e-sports startup based in San Francisco.

Academically, Nick was most recently an Assistant Professor of Data Science at The University of San Francisco (USF). In addition to his to teaching and research duties, Nick was the Director of USF’s Data Science Practicum Program and oversaw industry outreach and partnerships for USF’s newly formed Data Institute.

Nick is a proud product of the University of California system, having received his undergraduate degree in Math from  UC Berkeley, his Masters in Economics from UC Davis, and his Ph.D. from UCLA’s Anderson School of Management.