The Missing Data Project brings together the investigative storytelling and technical skills of MIT’s Civic Data Design Lab. Throughout the summer and beyond, we will have lab members as well as external experts contribute to projects that highlight missing data. This summer, we have four current and recent undergraduate students developing their own projects and we’ve asked them to introduce themselves and their summer goals.
Joyce Zhao
Hi it’s Joyce! I just graduated from Wellesley College, and I’m looking forward to working with the CDDL this summer. I’ve been examining the intersections of housing insecurity, gentrification, and COVID-19 within the city of San Francisco, California. Despite a moratorium, eviction notices are still being filed, prompting me to wonder who is still at risk of eviction, where these evictions occur, and how the city responds in the midst of a pandemic. From initial observations, it’s clear that some neighborhoods in San Francisco have been hit harder by COVID-19 than others. In this project, I hope to use data to spark conversations and raise questions about the relationship between COVID-19 and housing injustice, as well as engage with work done by advocacy groups and organizers in San Francisco.
Brian Williams
Hey! I’m an aspiring protein engineer, who’s actively looking for ways to uplift marginalized communities everywhere. I am a rising junior at MIT, majoring in Biological Engineering and minoring in Black Studies, and am looking forward to working in the Civic Data Design Lab this summer! So far, I have been analyzing and visualizing data reports on racial and ethnic data tied to COVID-19 test results and related deaths. In this project, I’m hoping to explain the confusing (and not so surprising) trends in the data and shed light on the reasons why discrepancies exist between states when reporting race in COVID-19 tests and deaths. Why is there missing data here, and what does this tell us? About testing strategies? About practicality? About policy?
I am passionate about understanding how policy decisions drive economic and social change. As an avid creative, I love to model and write poetry, and I play varsity baseball at MIT.
Amy Fang
I graduated from MIT in 2020, majoring in Mechanical Engineering and minoring in Anthropology and Design. In my semester, I took my first urban planning class,11.158 Behavior and Policy: Connections in Transportation, which has catalyzed a newfound fascination for all things behaviorally irrational (yet undeniably human) and excessively complicated. During this time, I became engaged to NUMTOT in a whirlwind romance, who helped her expose the inequitable safety misperceptions of shared micromobility.
Today, I fulfill my insatiable hunger for urban planning through mouthwatering memes, palatable PDF readings from classes I will never take, and spicy opportunities like the Missing Data Project. My first project investigates contradictory policies on the county, state, and national levels, specifically in the realm of everyday COVID-19 public safety practices. Just like my “missing” data sources, she thrives in ambiguity.
Yu Jing Chen
Hi! I’m a rising junior at MIT studying 11-6 (Urban Studies and Planning with Computer Science) and considering a minor in Entrepreneurship and Innovation!On campus, I can be found pretty much everywhere— I’m beyond grateful to have found community in various corners of campus, all the while forging space and platforms to empower those that are traditionally unheard across campus.
Regarding my project, if there’s one thing to know about COVID-19, it’s that it does not discriminate. Yet when looking at the statistics, the numbers seem to tell a different story. For indigenous communities, COVID-19 has become all too familiar, with Navajo Nation surpassing New York—once the epicenter of the pandemic—in positive per-capita cases. Through this project, I hope to dive into the different reasons why this is the case and mapping out the reality in order to read into the disparities that exist. From water hotspots to the availability of public infrastructure, this data can be used to help shape conclusions, but should never be taken out of context of any qualitative research or community engagement. At the end of the day, by overlaying the population breakdown and spread across Navajo Nation into this analysis, I hope to shed light on any systemic factors and patterns that may come to explain the adverse situation many indigenous communities have found themselves in during this global pandemic.
If not spending time pondering questions like these, I love to occupy my time exploring free events around my city or knitting to some quality Spotify playlists and am always looking for new songs to add!
