When:
Wednesday, October 27, 2021
11:00 AM - 12:00 PM CT
Where: Online
Audience: Faculty/Staff - Student - Post Docs/Docs - Graduate Students
Contact:
Kisa Kowal
(847) 491-3974
Group: Department of Statistics and Data Science
Category: Academic, Lectures & Meetings
Department of Statistics 2021-2022 Seminar Series (joint with Biostatistics), Co-hosted by Women in Statistics (WIST) - Fall 2021
“How Spatial Polygons Shape Our World: Geometry, Data, and Perceptions of Truth”
Amelia McNamara, Assistant Professor, Department of Computer & Information Sciences, University of St Thomas
Abstract: Borders often do not have much to do with the physical world. The edges of voting districts, cities, counties, states, and countries are decided by human processes, always implicitly if not explicitly political. Data are often provided preaggregated at a particular spatial polygon level. For example, data on poverty is collected at the blockgroup level, while data on education is easiest to obtain for school districts. This makes it difficult to combine data, and can lead to problems when data does not make sense at the level it was collected. In this talk, Amelia McNamara, University of St. Thomas Assistant Professor in the Department of Computer & Information Sciences, will discuss issues related to spatial polygon choices, like gerrymandering and the Modifiable Areal Unit Problem.