Case Western Reserve University

Case Western Reserve University commits to supporting PIT efforts through its “Think Big” strategic plan, summarized as follows: “Case Western Reserve is a high- impact research university that aspires to be a community where humanity, science, and technology meet to create a just and thriving world.” PIT initiatives are integrated throughout four pathways of “Think Big” – Ignite Interdisciplinarity; Integrate Humanity and Technology; Achieve Social Impact; and Shape the Agora. This includes the North Star Consortium, establishing long-lasting, collaborative relationships regarding research, learning and teaching with nine Black and minority-serving universities. 

Ben Vinson III, Provost and Executive Vice President

Educational Offerings

Integrating Community Knowledge and Equity into Integrated Administrative Data Systems for Research and Education in Data Science for Social Impact

Building on the FAIR2 framework, this project will develop guidelines for addressing racial bias in Integrated Data Systems (IDS), a powerful resource that informs decision-making in social services. Findings will be the basis for an instructional module on IDS to be tested in PIT curricula across partnering institutions and a policy brief to inform IDS analytics.

Principal Investigator

Francisca García-Cobián Richter, Research Associate Professor, Associate Director, Center on Poverty and Community Development at the Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel School of Applied Social Sciences.

Educational Offerings

PIT Fellowship Pilot Program

This project will pilot a PIT fellowship program to provide students with classroom education, coupled with hands-on, experiential education through engagement on relevant projects with local nonprofits and government agencies. Fellows will participate in a bi-weekly PIT seminar during the spring semester, and will then engage full-time during the summer on a PIT-related project organized by a partner organization, working with guidance and support from faculty mentors. The program will provide students with critical, hands-on experience at the intersection of technology and policy while building the field of PIT at CWRU and within Greater Cleveland.

Principal Investigator

Nicholas Barendt, Executive Director, Institute for Smart, Secure and Connected Systems (ISSACS)

Educational Offerings

Integrating Community Knowledge and Core Resources in a Graduate Certificate Program in Data Sciences for Social Impact

The project will develop a community-academic network and data science resources for the graduate certificate in Data Sciences for Social Impact (DSSI) to encourage students to undertake community-relevant projects that advance equity and social justice and connect with the experiences of those represented in the data. 

Principal Investigator

Francisca García-Cobián Richter, Research Associate Professor

Educational Offerings & Faculty and Institution Building

Sociotechnology of Cyber Security: An Experiential Learning Course

The project will develop an interdisciplinary, experiential-learning course on cybersecurity open to all Case Western Reserve University undergraduates.

Investigators

Brian Gran, Professor, Department of Sociology, Law (secondary), and Applied Social Sciences (secondary)

Au Wang, Assistant Professor at the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science