QASR held board elections for the remainder of the 2020-2021 academic year on Friday, December 4.

The new board members are:

• President: Christina Lv
• Vice President: Samantha Li
• Treasurer: Connie Xu
• Secretary: Lavanya N
• Digital media coordinator: Zehui Wang
• Alumni outreach coordinator (co-chaired): Cheng Zhong

The continuing board members are:

• Alumni outreach coordinator (co-chaired): Garda
• Community outreach coordinator: Alison
• Communications coordinator: Arielle

Currently, QASR is in the process of organizing virtual events for Spring 2021.

QASR held board elections for the 2020-2021 academic year on Friday, September 25.

The new board member results are:

• Alumni outreach co-coordinator: Gretchen Streett, Garda Ramadhito
• Co-Secretary: Christina Lv, Samantha Li
• Communications co-coordinator: Connie Xu, Arielle Herman
• Community outreach co-coordinator: Alison Ryland, Yuelin Li
• Digital media coordinator: Alison Ryland

Sydney (Bolim) Son remains president, and Wenxuan Dan remains treasurer.

Currently, QASR is in the process of organizing virtual events for the rest of the academic year, including datathons, happy hours, and guest speaker lectures.

On January 31st, QASR had its first board elections of the year. The previous holders of these particular board seats graduated this winter (congratulations!) and the positions of President, Vice-President, Treasurer, Alumni Chair and Community Outreach Coordinator were up for grabs. All ASGC (the Arts and Sciences Graduate Council) student organizations have a very detailed constitution. Accordingly, these elections were open to all GSAS students and were conducted through a written ballot. 

 Our new President was elected after an election between Sydney (Bolim) Son and Andrej Arpas. Both of these current QMSS students had passionate ideas about the direction QASR should head in this semester which contributed to the dynamics and themes of the new QASR board.  

 Interestingly enough, this semester we have a Statistics student as our Alumni Chair and the membership of the QASR board is larger than ever. This is the new list of QASR board members:

President – Sydney (Bolim) Son

Vice-President – Paarth Malkan 

Treasurer – Katie Aszklar

Secretary – Milton Liu

Alumni Chair – Wenxuan Dan

Community Outreach Coordinator – Carissa Caccia

Communications Coordinator – Dharini Srinivasan

Digital Media Coordinator – Sayali Nagwekar

QASR Representative to ASGC  – Louis Nix

 Currently, QASR is in the process of organizing several new events and workshops for QMSS and GSAS students. Watch this space for upcoming events from the new QASR team! Additionally, we have meetings every other Tuesday from 3.00 to 5.00 pm, which are open to all.  

 QASR welcomes the new board members and congratulates the old ones who have undertaken newer responsibilities!

Multi-Industry Advising Panel (Fall 2019)

On December 6, 2019, QASR and QMSS jointly hosted the Multi-Industry Advising Panel, a career development event which brought together five data professionals from different industries to provide career advice to QMSS students. The panelists included Nikole Williams, Edmond Wong, Wayne Lee, Reza Rad and Marco Morales.

QMSS students fully packed the room to listen firsthand to the panelists, and the panelists did not disappoint! The event started with questions posed to the professionals by the event’s moderators, Paarth Malkan and Bolim (Sydney) Son. The eclectic experiences of the panelists brought out great advice regarding numerous topics, from skills necessary for success in the workplace to company cultures and the impact that has on job satisfaction. Much of the advice came with the simple yet important context of “knowing yourself,” an idea agreed upon by each of the professionals. After the moderators asked their questions, the attendees had the opportunity to pose their own questions directly to the panelists. Following the end of the traditional section of the panel, panelists and students got to casually speak with each other and enjoy the remainder of the event with food and drinks.

The professional success and approachable nature of each panelist made the Friday evening workshop a productive and fun night for the attendees! A big thank you to each panelist and to everyone who attended! 

On November 16th 2019, QASR members volunteered as experiment leaders at Girl’s Science Day to foster interest and boost confidence in STEM fields for middle school girls. QASR taught about social networks, with a short lecture, worksheet exercise, an experiment, and real-time visualization in RStudio.

Surprisingly, middle school girls were eager to participate and contribute. First, the girls familiarized themselves with social network concepts using various examples, such as the NYC subway system and Snapchat. Afterwards, everyone filled out worksheets and created social network webs with their favorite celebrities, Harry Potter characters, or about themselves.

Finally, there were yarn experiments and real-time visualizations of those networks. Everyone stood around in circles, made statements, and connected with each other using colored yarns. Every girl was a node, and yarn was used as edges. Then, the physical yarn connections were coded and visualized. This interactive exercise facilitated interest about social networks and coding, which was very fulfilling. It was very nice to create an environment for girls to actively participate in an experiment and empower them.

Details about the event is available here (https://www.girlsscienceday.com/).

QASR/QMSS PhD Application Panel

Friday, November 7, 6:00PM
Columbia University Lerner Hall, Room 569

Co-sponsored by QMSS and QASR, the PhD Application Panel is an opportunity for master’s students to connect and communicate with current PhD candidates from Economics, Political Science, Sociology,and Statistics disciplines. The speakers will share their research interests, paths to their areas of expertise, and experiences applying to doctoral programs. Students will have the opportunity to ask questions and collect practical information in preparation for their own doctoral application. 

Light refreshments will be provided!

Attendee: The event is open to all current Columbia students and QMSS alumni. Participants who do not have an active Columbia ID must be added to a pre-approved guest list to have access to Lerner Hall. 

Space is limited; advance registration is required. RSVP https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/?sm=wb%2FDB1bTaEDkvxr5itxTxQ%3D%3D

QASR is looking for new board members to help organize events that will enhance the academic, social, and professional lives of students interested in quantitative methods at Columbia.

We welcome all students with initiative, ideas, and the ability to make those ideas happen. You can find the application form below.
*** The deadline has been extended to Friday 9/19, 3pm***

We look forward to reading your applications!

http://goo.gl/LH3umx

Below is the link to EdLab Media video coverage of the data dive that QMSS and other students participated in this spring (2014). Individuals participating in this 3-day long hackathon analyzed data provided by the United Nations Development Programme’s (UNDP) Extractive Industries for Sustainable Development (EI) organization.

https://vialogues.com/vialogues/play/16132

Seen in NY: UNDP’s Data Dive

QASR is partnering with QMSS and UNDP’s Team on Extractive Industries for Sustainable Development to organize a data exploration event which brings together the research capacity of the Columbia community with the increasingly available, but underutilized extractive industries (oil, gas, and mining) data of the United Nations Development Programme 

Data Dive Dates/Times
Friday, April 11th 6pm-9pm
Saturday, April 12th 9am-5pm
Sunday, April 13th 9am-5pm

Friday: Opening ceremonies, introduction to the research challenges and data, workshops on issues and methods pertinent to the challenge, team formation

Saturday: Full day hacking data.Breakfast & lunch provided.

Sunday: Full day hacking data. Breakfast & lunch provided. Closing ceremonies and presentations to conclude event.

The event aims to explore, through data analysis, associations between the extracitve industries and the social and economic conditions in which these industries operate. In addition, it strives to bring together individuals fluent in content expertise, statistical analysis and computer programming expose them to the processes and practices of other disciplines involved in the production of a quality, quantitative research product while providing the United Nations Development Programme with visualization pruducts that contribute to their efforts around the world.

Registration is REQUIRED to participate in this event and space is limited. Please see the UNDP/QMSS Data Dive website for more details http://www.qmss.columbia.edu/UNDPdataDive