Data Justice Academy

Data Justice Academy is a grant from the National Science Foundation that funds a 10-week residential summer program for undergraduate students from historically underrepresented groups in data science, hosted by the University of Virginia's School of Data Science. Participants perform mentored research while learning technical skills, with a focus on how data science and data justice intersect.

The program aims to highlight how data science can be used to address societal inequities and to create a more diverse and inclusive data science workforce. Eligible participants are undergraduate students from underrepresented groups in data science; universities can also apply to host similar NSF-supported programs.

Data Justice Academy Receives New Funding from NSF — School of Data Science Type a word to search or ESC to close Data Justice Academy participants present their research during a 2023 event.

The National Science Foundation will provide funding to the University of Virginia’s Data Justice Academy, the agency recently announced, support that will help the summer program continue to serve undergraduate students from groups that are historically underrepresented in data science.

Established in 2021 by the School of Data Science, the Data Justice Academy provides a 10-week residential experience to participants in which they perform mentored research while learning technical skills. The overriding goal of the Data Justice Academy is to highlight for participating students how data science and computational social science can be used to help communities and promote a more just world.

Beginning next year, the School of Data Science will partner with UVA's Equity Center in managing the program.

Thus far, the academy has provided such opportunities to more than 30 undergraduate students to work on projects focused on issues like health disparities, privacy concerns with large language models, the labelling of transgender individuals in census and public health data collection, and many more — all centered around the three research pillars of the Data Justice Academy: social inequality, ethical data science, and critical data studies.

Demonstrating the positive impact data projects can have on communities is vital to recruiting students from minority groups and other backgrounds to STEM-related fields, the academy’s organizers say.

“Research experiences at the undergraduate level have been classified as a high-impact practice — that is, they transform student engagement, performance, retention, and well-being,” said Claudia Scholz , founding director of the Data Justice Academy and director for research development at the School of Data Science.

“We are grateful for NSF’s support to allow us to continue to provide these experiences to students from underrepresented groups." Throughout the 10-week program, students work with School of Data Science faculty and graduate students, providing participants invaluable professional development as they look ahead toward potential graduate school opportunities and their career paths.

In the funding proposal to the NSF, academy organizers laid out planned research efforts for upcoming cohorts of students.

They include the Climate Justice Mapping project, aimed at identifying opportunities for equitable climate planning; the Housing Justice Atlas project, which will develop a predictive model to analyze various eviction challenges given different policy scenarios; an initiative to mitigate demographic bias in facial recognition; and an examination of the political economies of digital identity and biometric systems in the humanitarian sector.

The NSF award is expected to fund the Data Justice Academy through summer 2027. The directors of the grant are Scholz and Yue Cheng , an associate professor at the School of Data Science. Since its inception, the program has received support from Capital One, Deloitte, Oracle, and a private gift.

Past participants in the Data Justice Academy will gather in Charlottesville, Virginia, Aug. 1-2 for a reunion and symposium. C4K Hosts Starr Hill Pathway Students for Data Analytics Game C4K worked with the University of Virginia’s School of Data Science to organize an event for eight Starr Hill Pathways students.

Empowering Change: Data Justice Academy Showcases Research Findings In a recent exhibition sponsored by the Office of Citizen Scholar Development, the 2023 Data Justice Academy presented their summer research findings in a poster presentation.

Data Justice Academy Cohort Completes Summer Program with Poster Presentation In a collaborative showcase, the inaugural Data Justice Academy presented its summer research during a poster presentation. I am a... Stakeholder group School of Data Science Alumnus