MDI Fall 2025 Research Showcase: Learning Across New Trails
By: Bhumika Nebhnani, MPP ’27, Fall 2025 MDI Communications & Events Assistant
On December 10, 2025, the Massive Data Institute (MDI) at Georgetown University hosted its Fall 2025 Research Showcase, bringing together faculty, students, and members of the Georgetown community to reflect on a semester of interdisciplinary research. Held in the Social Room of the Healey Family Student Center, the event featured short flash talks, a poster session, and a reception celebrating the work of MDI Scholars across methods and disciplines.
The showcase opened with remarks from Dr. Lisa Singh, MDI Director, who framed the afternoon as part of a longer intellectual journey. Quoting Ralph Waldo Emerson, she shared:
“Do not go where the path may lead; go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.”
Dr. Singh encouraged scholars to see their research not as a finished destination, but as the beginning of many such trails—early explorations that can shape future questions, collaborations, and impact. Her remarks set a reflective tone for the event, emphasizing curiosity, experimentation, and the value of work still in progress.
Following the opening remarks, MDI Scholars delivered a series of brief flash talks, each offering a concise glimpse into their research. In just 60 seconds, presenters outlined the questions motivating their work and the approaches they were taking to address them. The format highlighted the diversity of inquiry across the cohort, while also underscoring a shared commitment to using data and computational tools to engage with real-world problems.
Inside the Poster Session
The flash talks flowed naturally into the poster session, where conversations slowed down and ideas had space to unfold. Rather than presenting polished conclusions, scholars used their posters to walk attendees through how their projects were taking shape: what data they were working with, what methods they were testing, and where uncertainties still remained.
Across the room, posters reflected a wide range of research directions. Some projects explored how data and machine learning can be used to study political communication, media narratives, and online information environments. Others focused on questions of privacy, security, and trust, including how sensitive data can be linked responsibly and how synthetic and manipulated content can be identified. Several posters examined public policy systems in practice, using empirical methods to analyze migration, education finance, social safety nets, and environmental programs. There were also projects applying computational approaches to questions of human behavior, safety, and institutional decision-making.
What stood out was not any single topic, but rather the way scholars moved fluidly between technical detail and broader implications. The poster format encouraged this kind of exchange, allowing attendees to ask questions, offer feedback, and draw connections across projects that might not otherwise sit side-by-side.
By the end of the session, the room felt less like a series of individual presentations and more like a shared research space—one shaped by dialogue, iteration, and collective learning.
A Space for Ongoing Work
The showcase concluded with a reception, where conversations continued informally and new connections began to take shape. In the spirit of Dr. Singh’s opening remarks, the event highlighted that the work presented was not meant to mark an endpoint. Instead, it reflected a moment in an ongoing process—research that is still evolving, questions that are still being refined, and paths that are only beginning to form.
The Fall 2025 MDI Research Showcase offered a snapshot of how scholars across Georgetown are engaging with data, computation, and policy in thoughtful and interdisciplinary ways. More importantly, it reaffirmed MDI’s role as a space where emerging ideas are supported, shared, and allowed to grow, one trail at a time.