McCourt School of Public Policy
Massive Data Institute
Massive Data Institute

Data Interpretation

How data and information, more broadly, are interpreted is influenced by language and culture. Understanding the impact of language and culture on individual decision making and societal norms is important for developing public policy that maps to the needs of different individuals and communities. MDI researchers develop quantitative and qualitative methods for measuring different aspects of language and culture, and then use these measures to better understand the influence of language and culture on issues of the day.

Semantic Database of Adpositions: This project is developing a language resource that maps prepositions and postpositions to semantic taxonomies and identifies role functioning pairs. This type of resource can help social scientists better understand the role language usage plays in different settings.  

French Culture & Politics: This project uses social media to improve researchers understanding of  different elements of French politics and culture. Ultimately, researchers plan to investigate the role of disinformation and fake news on social media French discourse and conduct a cultural analysis, incorporating analysis of massive data into the established methods of inquiry in the field of cultural studies. 

Faculty

Robin Dillon-Merrill (She/Her)

McDonough School of Business Operations and Analytics, Professor and Area Head

Lutz Sager (He/Him)

McCourt School of Public Policy, Assistant Professor

Nathan Schneider (He/Him)

Department of Linguistics and Computer Science, Associate Professor

Lisa Singh (She/Her)

Director of MDI
Department of Computer Science and McCourt School of Public Policy, Professor

Andrew Sobanet (He/Him)

Department of French and Francophone Studies, Professor and Vice Dean for Faculty Affairs

Rajesh Veeraraghavan (He/Him)

School of Foreign Service, Assistant Professor