Advancing Community-Centered Data Science: Five Years of Partnership

The University of Chicago’s Data Science Institute (DSI) recently celebrated five years of community-centered data science in partnership with The 11th Hour Project, the primary grantmaking arm of The Schmidt Family Foundation. The event highlighted the impact of this partnership both globally and locally in Chicago through talks on research collaboration, open source tool development, and student-led projects spanning human rights, food systems, ocean health, climate solutions, and civic technology. 

Dan Nicolae, Elaine M. and Samuel D. Kersten, Jr. Distinguished Service Professor and Faculty Co-Director at DSI, welcomed attendees by reflecting on the broader responsibility that accompanies leadership in data science and AI.  

“This partnership reflects something essential about DSI’s mission. As the University of Chicago advances the fields of data science and AI, we believe that leadership in these areas requires more than technical excellence,” Nicolae said. “It requires a commitment to rigor, responsibility, justice, and purpose. The work we are celebrating today embodies that commitment.”

Building Cross-Sector Partnerships

Over the past five years, faculty, technical research staff, postdocs, preceptors, and students have collaborated on more than 250 projects with nonprofit and civic organizations and 11th Hour Project grantees worldwide. Together, these partnerships have created lasting public value and advanced data science that is rigorous, responsible, and purposeful. 

David Uminsky, Research Professor and Executive Director of DSI, opened the program with an overview of the partnership and the goals of community-centered data science. “The strength of this partnership comes from sustained collaboration between researchers, students, nonprofits, civic organizations, and communities working together on shared challenges,” he shared. “This celebration is a look-back over the last five years, but always with an eye toward the future. That’s what excites me about being able to mark the moment tonight.” 

Follow the Money to Justice

One featured collaboration focused on the “Follow the Money to Justice” initiative developed with Inclusive Development International (IDI), a human rights organization that supports communities harmed by corporate and development projects. Dustin Roasa, Research Director at IDI, joined David Uminsky and DSI software engineers Launa Greer and Trevor Spreadbury to discuss the partnership with DSI and the suite of data and AI tools created over the past five years.  The result is an expanding ecosystem of open source tools that support journalists, researchers, and frontline communities internationally. 

These tools include the Shareholder Tracker, Development Bank Investment Tracker (DeBIT), and Commercial Debt Tracker, which automate and democratize financial data analyses for global NGOs, increasing transparency around development finance.

Another featured project, PalmWatch, combines global satellite imagery, supply chain data, and deforestation estimates to help communities and advocates monitor the impact of palm oil production and processing. 

“These tools have been transformative not just for the work that IDI does, but for the entire corporate accountability movement.” Roasa said. “We are training [human rights] organizations around the world how to do these investigations and a key part of our training methodology is showing them these tools and how they can use them.”

Social Impact and Environmental Solutions

The event also highlighted DSI’s collaboration with the Occidental Arts and Ecology Center (OAEC) on the “Fuels to Flows” campaign, addressing interconnected challenges related to wildfire risk, watershed restoration, and land conservation. OAEC Co-Founder Brock Dolman joined the event to discuss the project partnership with DSI. 

“The innovation that OAEC and myself are really excited to partner with DSI on is if we’re going to work and we’re going to scale this [approach], we need to really think like a watershed and look at a larger watershed scale planning, especially in the uplands. You can walk around and do that but that’s a lot of footwork,” Dolman shared. That’s where DSI came in. DSI engineers used image-recognition algorithms, LiDAR data, aerial imagery, and spatial methods to identify wildfire risks while supporting long-term carbon sequestration in forest ecosystems through gully and erosion detection. 

DSI Software Engineer Jim Pivarski also discussed how methods developed through the “Fuels to Flows” research have informed applications in other domains, including breast cancer research. This additional novel  research application underscores the cross-disciplinary potential of these types of partnerships. 

Data Science Clinic: Experiential Learning for Students

DSI’s Data Science Clinic, led by faculty director Nick Ross, is a project-based course where students address real client needs and real-world challenges. The Clinic emphasizes both pedagogy and impact, teaching students practical data science and communication skills while developing tools, dashboards, and models that directly serve community organizations, industry, and national labs. 

Ross presented an overview of Clinic projects developed with 11th Hour Project partners during the past five years. During that time, the Clinic has facilitated more than 70 projects, engaged hundreds of students, and generated more than 35,000 hours of collective work from students, mentors, and teaching assistants. 

These hands-on projects have included using AI to locate chicken processing facilities and reveal poultry industry concentration across the US alongside farming advocacy organizations, developing routing optimization systems with nonprofits working to create reusable foodware systems, and mapping pesticide exposure in Hawaii and California. 

Examples from the current year included projects with partner organizations Accountability Counsel and the Ecdysis Foundation. 

Clinic Project with Accountability Counsel: AI for Human Rights Advocates

A student team worked with Accountability Counsel to develop a tool that provides real-time feedback to users who are submitting complaints to large corporations and major financial institutions through their formal grievance processes. The tool leverages large langage models (LLMs) to improve access to accountability mechanisms, advancing the organization’s mission to protect human rights and the environment internationally. 

Clinic Project with the Ecdysis Foundation: AI for Sustainable Agriculture

Another Clinic team collaborated with the Ecdysis Foundation’s 1000 Farms Initiative, which partners with farmers to characterize species diversity and promote regenerative agriculture practices. Students developed automated bird detection systems using audio recordings and multiple AI models to streamline ecological data analysis. This supports biodiversity research while also reducing the need for manual review by the Ecdysis team. 

Together, these projects demonstrate how DSI’s community-centered approach empowers students and partners to address pressing social and environmental challenges through innovative data science and AI solutions.

Civic Data Partnerships

While many of the 11th Hour grantees have a global focus, the event also highlighted partnerships in Chicago and the surrounding region. Candice Stauffer, Data Analytics Lead for the City of Chicago Department of Technology and Innovation and a DSI Data Science Clinic mentor, joined Mindi Mysliwiec, Senior Director of Partnerships and Chief of Staff for DSI, to discuss what makes civic partnerships successful. 

Their conversation explored the benefits of collaboration between the Clinic and the City of Chicago, the growing role of AI tools in government, and how other public agencies can pursue similar partnerships with academic institutions to strengthen data-driven decision making.

Student and Alumni Experiences

Alumni Harper Schwab (BS/BA ’25) and Launa Greer (MSCAPP ’21) and current UChicago College student Audrey Zhang (BA ’26) reflected on how their experiences with DSI programs and partnerships shaped their career paths and inspired their commitment to community-focused data science. 

“When I was looking for a job, I really knew that I had this toolkit – I had this set of tools that I could apply to almost any problem I wanted. I just needed to find an organization where I had some alignment and I found some fulfillment, like I did with the Clinic project,” Schwab said. “I feel very grateful that I have this toolkit that I can apply anywhere.”

Data Science for Social Impact Summer Program

The Data Science for Social Impact (DSSI) summer program creates opportunities for students from multiple universities to collaborate with mission-driven organizations, strengthen their technical data and AI skills, and engage directly with social impact research. The DSSI Network now includes 13 partner colleges and universities across the country. 

Alumni featured in a video reflected on their experiences working on real-world data science challenges in the program and contributing to projects with meaningful social and environmental impact. 

Looking Forward 

The event concluded with remarks from Rebeka Ramangamihanta, Program Manager for Human Rights at the 11th Hour Project. Ramagamihanata reflected on the success of the collaborative model built between DSI, philanthropy, and social impact organizations, and emphasized the importance of continuing to strengthen partnerships that connect research with real-world impact.  

The celebration showcased the breadth of mission-driven research and open source tools, and the invaluable impact of interdisciplinary, cross-sector partnerships on local and global scales. The 11th Hour Project and DSI partnership continues to advance a model of data science leadership grounded in community-centered impact.