Faculty Reveal How to Get the Most from Census Big Data

Posted September 25, 2015

Georgia Tech is a founding partner of the Atlanta Research Data Center (ARDC), and the ICLAST: Big Data forum held on September 25 served as an opportunity for faculty members to share insights from their research experiences at the ARDC.

The event featured opening remarks from Professor Diana Hicks (School of Public Policy) and presentations from ARDC Administrator Melissa R. Banzhaf, Adjunct Associate Professor Jan Youtie (Public Policy), and Professor Chris Forman (Scheller College of Business). The speakers discussed various ARDC projects involving the statistical analysis of economic, demographic and health Census data. They also fielded questions and gave advice pertaining to how Georgia Tech students and faculty can utilize the ARDC for their own projects.

The forum drew a substantial audience of students and faculty members who filled the seminar room in the Stephen C. Hall Building to maximum capacity. 

“I think it’s great to see such strong interest in the Georgia Tech community in working with this big data,” Hicks said.

Located at the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta, the Atlanta Research Data Center seeks to provide qualified researchers in Atlanta and around the Southeast with the opportunity to perform statistical analysis on non-public Census microdata.

The ARDC is a partnership between the U.S. Census Bureau and a consortium that includes Georgia State University, the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta, Emory University, Georgia Tech, the University of Alabama at Birmingham, the University of Georgia, the University of Tennessee at Knoxville, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Clemson University, and Florida State University.

The Big Data forum was the third event of the Ivan Allen College’s Fall 2015 ICLAST interdisciplinary research discussion series, which is designed to encourage research collaborations and to disseminate research to faculty, post doctoral fellows, and masters and undergraduate students across the College and campus. The events feature panelists from different Georgia Tech units who present their research on a common topic linking the liberal arts, sciences, and technology.