University of Maryland

SoDa Symposium:  Social Data Science Research, Innovation, and Entrepreneurship

Our presenters will discuss innovation, entrepreneurship in social data science, and creators on social media.  The research opportunities in these areas provide a glimpse into the future of these platforms regarding the Metaverse and the AI revolution in search that is now upon us.

March 14, 2023

Presenters:

Research opportunities in the challenging survival world of social media fame and fortune

Charles DiSogra, DrPH, MPH
Survey Research Methodologist

Dr. DiSogra has had senior positions at Meta and Google.  At Meta he was director of user experience research for Facebook app and more recently director of research with Meta’s Demography and Survey Sciences group.  Prior to Meta, he built the survey and statistics team for Google’s customer experience lab that tracks global advertiser satisfaction for the company. He was also the founding director of the California Health Interview Survey at UCLA and was Chief Statistician and Senior Vice President at both Abt SRBI and Knowledge Networks/GfK.  As a member of the American Association for Public Opinion Research, Dr. DiSogra served on the Standards Committee addressing the professional code of ethics regarding surveys and polls in the United States.  Dr. DiSogra formerly held a leadership role as chair of the Applied Public Health Statistics Section of the American Public Health Association. He received their National Applied Statistics Award for Achievement in Industry.  He is also a member of the Survey Methods Section of the American Statistical Association. 

Promoting Open Government Data with Economics and Entrepreneurship

Ginger Jin, Ph.D.
Professor, Department of Economics
University of Maryland
Co-Founder, Hazel Analytics

Ginger Zhe Jin is currently Professor of Economics at the University of Maryland, College Park. She is also the ADVANCE Professor of the College of Behavioral and Social Sciences at the University since September 2021. In 2015-2017, she was on leave at the Federal Trade Commission, serving as the Director of the FTC Bureau of Economics from January 2016 to July 2017. From January 2019 to May 2020, she was on leave at Amazon.com as Amazon Scholar and Senior Principal Economist.

Most of her research focuses on information asymmetry among economic agents and how to provide information to overcome the information problem. The applications she has studied include retail food safety, health insurance, prescription drugs, e-commerce, regulatory inspection, scientific innovation, air quality, blood donation, vaccination, intrafamilial interaction, data regulation, and consumer protection. Her research has been published in leading economics, management and marketing journals, with support from the National Science Foundation, the Net Institute, the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, and the Washington Center for Equitable Growth. Many of her works have been covered by major media outlets including Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Forbes, Bloomberg, and Los Angeles Times.

She is currently a managing editor of the International Journal of Industrial Organization, associate editor of RAND Journal of Economics, advisory council member of Journal of Industrial Economics, and board member of Industrial Organization Society. She has been Research Associate of NBER since 2012.

In October 2014, she co-founded Hazel Analytics, an analytics company that promotes the use of open government data.

She received her PhD in Economics from UCLA in 2000.

MODERATOR


MODERATED BY: Frauke Kreuter
Co-Director, Social Data Science Center (SoDa)
Professor, Joint Program in Survey Methodology
University of Maryland
Chair of Statistics and Data Science in Social Sciences and the Humanities
Ludwig-Maximilians-University of Munich