Life After CDS: A Conversation with CDS Faculty Fellow Andy Halterman
Since our establishment in 2013, we’ve experienced tremendous growth at CDS. As our program continues to evolve, so do our people. You may remember CDS Faculty Fellow Andy Halterman from our “Meet the Fellow” series this past fall. We’re excited to announce that Andy will start a position as Assistant Professor of Political Science at Michigan State University. We caught up with him to discuss his experience at CDS, his new role at Michigan State, and how he hopes his research will impact the future of data science.
What initially brought you to CDS?
My research during graduate school was at the intersection of applied NLP and political science. Coming out of a political science department, I was looking for a place that had a strong NLP community. CDS has an amazing group of researchers in NLP, and I’ve been learning a lot from them. The Center also has a strong emphasis on political science, so it was really an ideal place to spend a year.
Can you tell us a bit about what you’ve been working on at CDS and describe your overall experience here so far?
I’ve been enjoying the freedom of this year to build a pipeline of projects that will see me through the first couple of years in my next position. The core of my work is on identifying political events in text, both methodological projects that develop better tools for doing so, but also substantive projects, like identifying rebel governance activities in civil wars. I’m also working on some early phase projects on the application of question-answering models and techniques for generating synthetic data in political science, as well as finishing off my dissertation papers. This semester, I’m teaching a course called “Text as Data”, which focuses on how we can answer substantive research questions using automated techniques for analyzing text.
You’ll be starting a new role. Can you tell us a bit about your new position and what are you most looking forward to working on there (as it relates to data science)?
I’ll be an assistant professor of political science at Michigan State University. Most of my instruction will be the PhD research methods sequence, where I’ll be teaching both traditional statistics and computational methods for political science. I really enjoy teaching grad students, and I’m looking forward to those classes. My colleagues in the department are also very welcoming, and I’m looking forward to continuing some ongoing collaborations with them.
What role do you see your work/research potentially playing in the future of data science?
I was just looking at (NYU alum) Drew Conway’s famous “data science Venn diagram” from almost ten years ago. He argues that data science is the intersection of three areas: math & stats, applied computer science, and substantive expertise. I think what will set data science apart as a field that’s distinct from computer science, statistics, machine learning, and natural language processing is a focus on applied problems. Social scientists all have their areas of substantive interest, and also receive a lot of training in how to carefully pose and rigorously answer research questions, and I think we have important contributions to make to data science alongside our colleagues in math, statistics, and computer science.
Do you have any final thoughts or comments you’d like to share about yourself, your work, CDS or data science in general?
It’s bittersweet leaving a place that’s been productive and enjoyable, but I’m excited to start the next phase of my career.
By Ashley C. McDonald
