Yale appoints director of new Data-Intensive Social Science Center

Ron Borzekowski (Photo by Dan Renzetti) - Ron Borzekowski, who spent several years leading the Office of Research at the federal Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), has been named the inaugural executive director of Yale's Data-Intensive Social Science Center (DISSC), a planned campus hub for social science research that uses advanced computing to analyze large and complex datasets. Once it is operational, the DISSC will provide Yale's social scientists a range of services, including event programming, such as cross-disciplinary workshops and seminars for faculty and other researchers to share the latest techniques and technology in managing and analyzing large datasets; research support, such as assistance with negotiating data-use agreements; and help in establishing secure computing environments for working with sensitive data. I'm excited to work with the scholars across campus who are doing advanced data-intensive social science research,- said Borzekowski. -I especially look forward to helping facilitate research that has the potential to inform and influence public policy addressing the most pressing issues facing the country and the world. There is a lot of existing capability in this area on campus, and my job will be to build on and advance those efforts. Borzekowski, who started July 1, has been meeting with campus groups that already conduct and support data-intensive social science research. His immediate task is to figure out how to coordinate those existing services and determine what sort of structures are needed to continue moving Yale to the forefront of research that merges data science and social science.