2022 APDU Candidate Statements

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Candidate for President: Amy O’Hara, Research Professor, Georgetown University (2-Year Term)

Amy O’Hara is a Research Professor in the Massive Data Institute and Executive Director of the Federal Statistical Research Data Center at the McCourt School for Public Policy. She works on data access, linkage, and privacy issues. O’Hara has published on topics including privacy preserving technologies, civil justice, and the data infrastructure necessary to support data users and policymakers. Prior to joining Georgetown, O’Hara was a senior executive at the U.S. Census Bureau where she founded their administrative data curation and research unit. She received her Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Notre Dame.

Candidate Statement:

APDU members need improved data access and usability. The past few years have shown how important data are to understand everything from population health to public safety, to measure our society’s advances and shortcomings. As APDU Vice President, it has been my privilege to make connections across our networks, sharing training materials and tools, and to work with a great team to plan our events. I believe we have strengthened ties between federal, state, and local data producers and users – but much work remains. As President, I will continue to drive conversations from the national to the local level, with public and private data producers, to ensure that data users get the information they need. Specifically, I plan to:

• Engage with federal statistical officials as they plan changes to race categories and other data
products
• Host virtual and physical town halls with APDU and peer organizations
• Highlight non-federal data sources
• Extend our Student/Early Career Scholarship program
• Communicate with members to make sure we are providing useful information

 

Candidate for Vice President: Beth Jarosz, Senior Research Associate, Population Reference Bureau (2-Year Term)

At PRB Beth Jarosz works on a wide range of U.S. demographic topics, with a focus on subnational analysis. Prior to joining PRB, she served as Senior Demographer at the San Diego Association of Governments and later taught sociology at Pensacola State College. Her publications are cross-disciplinary and span topics from inequality to mortality, as well as forecast and estimation methods—all have relied heavily on public data. Throughout her career she has been a champion of public data.

Candidate Statement:

Over the past few years, as a member of the APDU Board, I served on the conference planning committee, helped to brainstorm and organize webinars, and assisted in advertising APDU events through a variety of social media channels. In addition, in my role as Secretary I have recorded APDU Board motions and outcomes. In a Vice President role, I will continue my work to add value for existing members and to grow the organization.

 

Candidate for Secretary: Bernie Langer, Senior Data Analyst, Center for Court Innovation (2-Year term)

Bernie Langer’s expertise in public data comes from his previous work at PolicyMap. Mr. Langer has a deep and broad knowledge about federal statistical agencies and private data providers, as well as experience working with data and data users to solve problems. He worked with data from the Census Bureau, BLS, IRS, SSA, HUD, USDA, FDIC, FBI, FCC, FEMA, DOT, NCES, EPA, SBA, and CDC, just to name a few. Mr. Langer also led PolicyMap’s “Mapchats” webinar series, a forum for data providers and users to discuss their work. Mr. Langer’s current work at the Center for Court Innovation deals with a very different type of data, regarding New York City’s criminal justice system. In his role as a senior data analyst, Mr. Langer works with the organization’s Supervised Release Program, a pre-trial alternative to bail.

Candidate Statement:

I am excited to continue serving on the APDU Board of Directors, and serve as secretary. In my last terms, I’ve twice served on the conference committee, which put together APDU’s first ever virtual conference as well as its first in-person conference following the pandemic. I find APDU’s conferences, webinars, and newsletters invaluable. As Secretary, I would continue my commitment to maintaining the high quality of APDU’s services and events, finding additional ways for data providers and users to interact, and raising the profile of public data in society.

Candidate for At-large: Andrea Calloway, Adjunct Professor, Bowie State University (3-Year term):

Ms. Andrea S. Calloway has joined the HU family as the new Assistant Director of the Honors Program in the College of Arts and Sciences. Ms. Calloway most recently served at Bowie State University (BSU) from Fall 2017 to Summer 2022, as a Lecturer and Undergraduate Program and Assessment Coordinator in the Management Information Systems (MIS) Department of the College of Business (COB). She also chaired the College’s Alumni Engagement Committee and coordinated the Mentor Alliance Program. Ms. Calloway was essential in facilitating an MOU between BSU and the Census Bureau. She also participated in the National Science Foundation (NSF) Data Science and Analytics universitywide initiative, is a Morgan State University HBCU Blockchain Champion, and is an HP HBCU Tech Conference Campus Champion.

Ms. Calloway enjoys student engagement, evident in her role as Freshman Seminar Robotics session facilitator, Faculty Advisor of the Bionic Bulldogs Robotics Club and Delta Sigma Pi Professional Business Fraternity, Co-Faculty Advisor of the NSBE Collegiate Chapter, and advisor to the MIS Club while at Bowie State University. She is an assessment best practices expert – having served as Secretary of the BSU Committee for Assessment of Student Learning & Experience and Faculty Focus Lead for the College of Business Reaccreditation. She also served as a member of the Middle States Accreditation Standard 5 Team; and facilitator for the Association of Assessment Learning Exchange (AALHE) virtual discussions. In 2021, the College awarded Ms. Calloway the coveted COB Pillars of Success Award for Assessment; in 2022, she was awarded the Faculty Award for Mentorship.

Prof. Calloway received her BBA in MIS and MS in MIS from Pace University in New York, where she also taught in the School of Computer Science and Information System for twenty years. Her research areas include robotics, servicelearning, blockchain, and data analytics. She is a member of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc. and enjoys traveling, reading, cooking, and outdoor recreation.

Candidate Statement:

I was introduced to APDU by Amy O’Hara, due to my involvement with the US Census Bureau, as I facilitated the 2021 MOU between Census and Bowie State University (BSU), in particular, with the Management Information Systems (MIS) Department in the College of Business (COB). The MOU includes information and resource exchange, curriculum development, speaker series, internship/employment opportunities and an annual data science and analytics symposium and datathon. After securing COB membership in APDU and attending the October conference in VA with my students, I started thinking about how a similar partnership could be formed with APDU and the faculty and students I interact with at both BSU and Howard University. Currently, I am the co-PI of a $400,000 NSF INCLUDES HBCU-UP Targeted Infusion Program grant at Howard University, titled “Providing a Data Science and Analytics Approach to the Honors Curriculum at Howard University”. We are in the proposal submission stage, but I feel confident that our proposal will be accepted, and I foresee a great opportunity to work closely with APDU within this initiative. Such a partnership would increase APDU’s outreach and benefit its mandate to advocate for, and to develop interest in, policy making, in the area of public data access and use. And, as a Black woman in STEM for the past 25 years, I am excited about the opportunity to engage more minority and underrepresented students in the data science and analytics field,
from the perspective of APDU’s mission.

 

Candidate for At-large: David Van Riper, Director of Spatial Analysis, Minnesota Population Center, University of Minnesota (3-Year term)

I have worked at the Minnesota Population Center since 2001, when I started as a graduate research assistant on IPUMS NHGIS. I have been a full-time employee since 2005 and currently serve as Director of Spatial Analysis. In this role, I consult with MPC members on their spatial analysis needs, including project planning, data
acquisition/creation/processing, and grant writing. I am co-Principal Investigator on two NIH-funded grants: IPUMS NHGIS and IPUMS GeoMarker. IPUMS NHGIS provides access to historical and contemporary small-area data, including GIS mapping files, for the United States. IPUMS GeoMarker allows users to securely geocode data and attach neighborhood characteristics to the geocoded output.
I also work on the geographic aspects of other IPUMS products, including IPUMS USA, Historical Census Projects, IPUMS International, and IPUMS DHS.

Candidate Statement:

I am incredibly excited to be considered for a board seat with the Association of Public Data Users (APDU). I have spent my entire professional career in public data curation and dissemination at IPUMS, working mainly on the National Historical Geographic Information System (NHGIS). Through my work creating data and metadata for summary files from contemporary and historical Decennial census data and the American Community Survey and supporting NHGIS users, I have learned about the power of public data, the complexity of our statistical system, and the challenges of communicating these complexities to users.

My experience has made me appreciative of the work that APDU does to support public data and public data users through advocacy, training, workshops, and convening groups to examine pressing issues in the public data sphere. During the past three years, I have participated in the debate about changes to disclosure avoidance at the US Census Bureau and what that may mean for public data access in the future. I would love to help APDU support (and continue to support) training and workshops related to this topic, and I think APDU is well-situated to convene various groups to
have hard conversations about the future of public data access. I want to help APDU with these convenings so that as many voices as possible have a say.

 

Candidate for At-large: Aaron Bean, Founder and Managing Director, Asemio (1-Year Term)

Aaron Bean is a social entrepreneur with a passion for building data-informed communities. He is a co-founder and the managing director of Asemio. In addition to working in the private sector, Aaron spent 2009–2011 serving in the United States Peace Corps, focusing on capacity building in Central Asia.

Candidate Statement:

Thank you for the recognition and possibility of serving on the APDU board. I’m thrilled by this opportunity to help shape the organization and support public/private data needs. The mission of APDU closely aligns with my work as a social entrepreneur. The organizational mission I work within daily is to build data and technology ecosystems at all government levels where the use of public data supports improved social and economic outcomes. I look forward to supporting APDU through event promotion, resource development, and advocacy efforts related to policy, best practices, and national partnerships.