Team

Founding Director and Frank M. Freimann Professor of Computer Science and Engineering

Address: 384 Nieuwland Science Hall

Phone: 574.631.1090

Email: nchawla@nd.edu

Nitesh Chawla serves as the Founding Director of the Lucy Family Institute for Data & Society. In addition to this role, he is the Frank M. Freimann Professor of Computer Science and Engineering and the Director of the Data Inference Analysis and Learning Lab. Chawla's research is focused on machine learning, data science, and network science. He is at the frontier of interdisciplinary applications with innovative work in healthcare analytics, social and information networks, business analytics, national security, and climate/environmental sciences.

Executive Assistant

Address: 384E Nieuwland Science Hall

Phone: 574.631.7095

Email: abotello@nd.edu

Jasmine Botello provides administrative support for Nitesh Chawla, Director of Lucy Family Institute for Data & Society, and the Institute faculty and students. Before joining Notre Dame full time, Jasmine worked as a student for the CRC and Latino Studies on campus. Jasmine holds a BA in Studio Art while minoring in Communication from Holy Cross College and is currently pursuing a Masters of Art in Health Communication from Indiana University of South Bend.

Data Science Education Program Manager

Address: 384A Nieuwland Science Hall

Phone: 574.631.2882

Email: schawla@nd.edu

Sugana Chawla supports the new iTReDS program as the Education and Outreach Program Manager. Prior to joining Notre Dame, she was in Maryland where she also received her MA in Education. She has a BS in Environmental Science and Policy from the University of South Florida. She is excited to apply her STEM background coupled with her education degree to work with students and faculty, and is driven by the purposeful work on making a difference to scholarship and communities.

Associate Director of Education Initiatives and Professor of Psychology

Address: Corbett Family Hall

Phone: (574) 631-7649

Email: ycheng4@nd.edu

Professor Ying (Alison) Cheng is a psychologist whose research focuses on quantitative methods in educational and psychological measurement research, particularly item response theory (IRT) and cognitive diagnostic modeling. Her research seeks to improve the precision, validity, fairness, and usefulness of large-scale standardized tests such as the GRE and statewide student assessments. Professor Cheng's research complements the other aspects of her work as associate professor in Notre Dame’s Department of Psychology, such as teaching of undergraduate statistics and graduate courses in Item Response Theory, Psychological Measurement, and Test Development. For Professor Cheng, it is extremely exciting and gratifying when research ideas are generated from classroom teaching.

Events & Communications Coordinator

Address: 610 Flanner Hall

Phone: 574.631.6853

Email: adoroh@nd.edu

Associate Director (CSSR)

Address: 620 Flanner Hall

Phone: 574.631.6166

Email: bfogart2@nd.edu
 

Brian Fogarty serves as an associate director for Lucy Family Institute, specifically overseeing the Center for Social Science Research. He is also concurrent associate professor of the practice in the Department of Political Science. At the CSSR, he works with social science researchers to support their project research design, data, and quantitative analysis needs.  His current research focuses on the news media as a strategic actor in politics and understanding perceptions of voter and electoral fraud. Before joining Notre Dame, he was a lecturer in quantitative social science at the University of Glasgow’s Q-Step Centre. Prior to Glasgow, he was an associate professor of political science at the University of Missouri – St. Louis.  He received his Ph.D. in political science from the University of North Carolina – Chapel Hill.

CV

International Scholar

Email: agarci35@nd.edu
Phone: +1 574-631 2046 (office)
384A Nieuwland Science Hall, Notre Dame, IN 46556

Angélica García Martínez  is an International Scholar & Postdoctoral Research Associate at the Lucy Family Institute for Data & Society. Garcia Martinez' expertise is in cancer epidemiology, and work with children in high-vulnerability in rural villages and indigenous population in Mexico. She has coordinated research projects for Mexico´s National Public Health Institute (INSP, 2008-2016) and the University of California, Harvard University and Yale University. Served as Research Director in Un Kilo de Ayuda, Mexican NGO (2016 to 2020), designed the system INFOKilo, v2 - real-time monitoring to assess neurological and physical development in children in high-vulnerability and serves as project manager of Lucy Institute's research project with HIMFG (Hospital Infantil de México, Federico Gómez) for Validation of the risk scale for tracking oncological patients with fever and neutropenia. She holds a PhD in Public Health and Epidemiology from Mexico's National Public Health Institute (INSP).

AETL Data Scientist

Phone: 574.631.3285

Office: 614 Flanner Hall

Email: mhauenst@nd.edu

Matthew Hauenstein is an AETL data scientist for the Lucy Family Institute for Data & Society.  He holds a Ph.D. in Political Science from Florida State University with a specialization in quantitative research methods.  As a data scientist, he works with the Applied Analytics & Emerging Technology Lab to develop analytics projects for regional businesses.  Before joining the Lucy Family Institute he was a postdoctoral scholar with the Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies at the University of Notre Dame.

Managing Director, AETL

Phone: 574.631.1086

Office: 615 Flanner Hall

Email: rick.johnson@nd.edu

Rick Johnson serves as an associate professor of the practice and managing director of the Applied Analytics and Emerging Technology Lab (AETL) as part of the Lucy Family Institute for Data & Society.  AETL collaborates with iNDustry Labs to help accelerate economic and innovation impact in the South-Bend Elkhart region, achieving the goals of the LIFT Network.  Prior to joining AETL, Rick most recently combined his research, industry, and technology experience as the Director of the Strategic Innovation Lab which analyzed, prototyped, and vetted mid-to-long-term strategic opportunities for the Hesburgh Libraries. Rick also spearheaded the implementation of the University of Notre Dame’s institutional repository, CurateND, contributed to several data preservation research grants, and served as a Visiting Program Officer for the Association of Research Libraries for the SHARE project. Prior to joining the university in 2008, Rick worked as a software developer in the banking industry in Seattle for seven years, and spent two years in software sales and consulting in Chicago and Tokyo.  He holds two bachelor’s degrees from the University of Notre Dame in Computer Science and Japanese, and a Masters of Library and Information Science from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.

AETL Software Engineer

Address: 613 Flanner Hall

Email: mkennel@nd.edu

Michael Kennel is an AeTL Software Engineer for the Lucy Family Institute for Data & Society. A native to the Northern Indiana area and a graduate of Indiana University South Bend, Michael is invested in the local community and dedicated to affecting positive change to the region. By developing software to assist in data collection and representation Michael brings his years of experience as a front end web developer to collaborate with the data scientists of the Lucy Family Institute. Before joining Notre Dame, Michael worked as an application developer for the City of South Bend and most recently for South Bend Code School and Code Works.

Managing Director AnalytiXIN

Phone: 574.631.1905

Office: 1220 Waterway Blvd Indianapolis, IN 46202
Email: vkuskova@nd.edu

Valentina (Valya) Kuskova is the Managing Director of Notre Dame AnalytiXIN site in Indianapolis. Her main responsibility is to coordinate and execute the implementation of the Notre Dame AnalytiXIN interface with industry stakeholders. In this role, she is tasked with bringing Notre Dame AI/ML and advanced data analytics talent into direct interaction with CICP companies through a structured set of activities, including strategic initiatives, research projects, student internships, corporate/faculty exchanges, and many educational and networking events.

Dr. Kuskova has extensive corporate and academic experience. After an MBA from Boise State University she had worked in a variety of corporate roles, from programmer/analyst to senior strategic planning analyst at major Fortune-200 companies. Following a master's in applied statistics and a PhD in business and decision sciences (both from Indiana University, Bloomington) she had spent over 10 years in academia. In addition to academic responsibilities of research and teaching, she was the founding director of a network-analytic think tank, and founded and supervised two master's programs in advanced analytics. She has a lot of experience working for corporate clients such as Coca-Cola, McDonalds, Volkswagen, Association of European Business, and many others, where she has held the roles of PI, co-PI, or advanced analytics methodologist. Her research interests include network modeling, time-series analysis, and nonparametric methods (especially for efficiency/effectiveness analysis). She is passionate about using science for the benefit of industry and society. 

Appointment Announcement

Research Project Coordinator

Address: 610 Flanner Hall

Phone: 574.631.6853

Email: dleiva@nd.edu

Donovan Leiva is the Research Project Coordinator at the Lucy Family Institute for Data and society. He holds a Masters Degree in Global Affairs with a specialization in Global Health. He was the field station manager at the Belize Vector and Ecology Center, which focuses on the transmission of disease from insects to humans and is a firm advocate of the use of technology to aid in research, project management, monitoring and evaluation and database management. In this role, he worked with local and international researchers in support of the Ministry of Health in order to strengthen the country’s capacity for malaria elimination, disease prevention and research. At Lucy he connects the team with local and international researchers to foster project coordination, engagement, outreach, grants and proposals. 

CSSR Lead Data Scientist and Assistant Research Professor

Address: 623 Flanner Hall

Phone: 574.631.1168

Email: cliu7@nd.edu

Cheng Liu is an Assistant Research Professor at the Lucy Family Institute for Data and Society, where he also serves as the lead Data Scientist for the Center for Social Science Research. Prior to joining the institute, Dr. Liu worked as a Computational Scientist at the Center for Research Computing for several years. Dr. Liu has earned Ph.Ds. in both Physics from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and Statistics from the University of Notre Dame. He specializes in statistical modeling and computational infrastructure development. Dr. Liu has extensive experience collaborating with researchers in diverse fields, including computer science, psychology, biology, statistics, and education, etc. Dr. Liu's research interests include statistical modeling, machine learning, data science, educational and psychological measurement, and research software and platform development. He provides statistical consultation and software development services, and actively engages in collaborative grant applications with researchers.

CV

Research Program Manager

Address: 616 Flanner Hall

Phone: 574.631.1150

kliu22@nd.edu

Katie Liu is the Research Program Manager for the Lucy Family Institute for Data & Society. Katie collaborates with Lucy Affiliated faculty, fellows, staff, and students to identify and develop internal and external funding opportunities. Before joining Notre Dame, Katie was an NSF-GRFP fellow at Stanford University, where she received her Ph.D. in Biophysical Chemistry studying the mechanism of influenza virus membrane fusion. She graduated summa cum laude with a B.A. in Chemistry from Scripps College.

AETL Data Scientist

Address: 613 Flanner Hall

Phone: +1 574-631-3696

Email: rmakhija@nd.edu

Ramandeep Makhija is an AeTL Data Scientist for the Lucy Family Institute for Data & Society. He holds a master’s degree in Industrial Engineering from the State University of New York at Buffalo with specialization in Operations Research and a bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Pune. His responsibilities in the current position are to plan and manage data science and analytics projects in collaboration with a wide range of businesses in manufacturing, healthcare, etc. Before joining Notre Dame's Lucy Family Institute for Data & Society he worked as a Data Scientist for the non-profit organization Citizens Utility Board in Chicago, IL.

Professor of the Practice

Phone: 574.631.1546

Office: 911 Flanner Hall

Email: natalie.meyers@nd.edu

Natalie Meyers serves as Professor of the Practice in the Lucy Family Institute. Meyers's research focuses on FAIR data management and software preservation. Prior to joining Notre Dame, she was co-owner of Content Innovations, LLC a California certified woman-owned small business in San Francisco. Meyers was previously a programmer analyst and GIS specialist at UC Berkeley where she also received her Masters in Library and Information Systems (MLIS) with a concentration in Systems Analysis and Database Design. She also holds an MA in English from University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee.

Associate Research Professor

Nuno Moniz is an Associate Research Professor at the Lucy Family Institute for Data & Society and the Associate Director for the Data, Inference, Analytics, and Learning (DIAL) Lab.  Moniz's research is primarily focused on machine learning, looking into problems such as rare event detection, data privacy and model interpretability. He is particularly interested in interdisciplinary efforts to understand the real-world impact of intelligent systems. Before joining the Lucy Family Institute, Nuno was a Senior Researcher in INESC TEC (Portugal). He holds a PhD in Computer Science from the University of Porto.

AETL Software Engineer

Address: 624 Flanner Hall
Email: wmorris2@nd.edu

 

William ‘Russ’ Morris is an AeTL Software Engineer for the Lucy Family Institute for Data & Society. A Mishawaka, Indiana native, Russ graduated from Franklin College (Franklin, IN) with a degree in Computer Science.

Before joining Notre Dame, Russ worked locally as a full stack Software Engineer with Xcel Controls, Inc., Memorial Hospital, Liberty Mutual Insurance Co., and ICC-NTA Inc.
Russ brings his years of extensive software development experience in Industrial and Electrical Engineering, Medical, Finance, and Insurance industries to his role as a software developer in collaboration with the data scientists of the Lucy Family Institute.
Russ is active in the local community acting as an assistant high school track coach, member of the Knights of Columbus, and an active member of Queen of Peace parish in Mishawaka.

Assistant Research Professor

Phone: 574.631.0690

Office: 622 Flanner Hall

Email: smotghar@nd.edu

Website: https://swapnil-motghare.github.io/

Swapnil Motghare serves as an assistant research professor for Lucy Family Institute for Data and Society.

Postdoctoral Research Associate

Address:  614 Flanner Hall

Phone:  574-631-9406

Email:  menichols@nd.edu

Website: https://margaretnichols.me/

Margaret Nichols is a Postdoctoral Research Associate with the Applied Analytics and Emerging Technology Lab (AETL) within the Lucy Family Institute for Data & Society. She holds a Ph.D. in Mathematics from the University of Chicago. Prior to joining Notre Dame, she held appointments as a Simons Postdoctoral Fellow at the Fields Institute in Toronto and as a Visiting Assistant Professor in the mathematics department at the University at Buffalo.

Research Fellow

Address:  384E Nieuwland Hall

Email:  bpei@nd.edu

Bo Pei is a Postdoctoral Associate supervised by Ying (Alison) Cheng, working half time in the Lucy Family Institute for Data & Society and half time in the Office of Learning Analytics (OLA) at Notre Dame Learning. Bo works on exploring fair and trustworthy learning analytics (LA) to support a justice, equity, diversity and inclusion (JEDI) learning environment. Before joining Notre Dame, Bo got his Ph.D. in Educational Technology at the University of Florida.

Associate Professor of the Practice (Information & Data Science)

Phone: 574 631-7095

Office: 611 Flanner Hall

Email: jturner7@nd.edu

Jaron Porciello is an information and data scientist. Her programs bring together technology, group work and research methods to connect policy and science across a global food system.  She has worked with agricultural research communities, publishers, UN agencies, donors, and development groups across Sub-Saharan Africa for more than a decade to support the changing and complex sociotechnical environment of research, evidence, and data. The hallmark of her projects is they way they center multiple stakeholders like universities, publishers, funders, international agencies, and NGOs as they strive to achieve shared goals to advance access to and acceleration of data and knowledge for the public good.  As co-director of Ceres2030 a project to instantiate sustainable solutions to end hunger she worked collaboratively to bring together a diverse and global community to build consensus on  interventions needed to end hunger and transform the lives of the world’s poorest farmers—while protecting the environment.

Previously, she was director of a developing world agricultural science information public-private partnership (TEEAL) and program manager for AGROA, a Research4Life (R4L) partnership across WHO, FAO, and UNEP and before at arXiv.org she oversaw the member sustainability portfolio.  Porciello holds dual Masters Degrees in Information and Library Sciences and English literature from Indiana University.

Associate Professor of the Practice (GIS and Data Science)

Address: 617 Flanner Hall

Phone: 574.631.7313

Email: msisk1@nd.edu
 

 

Matthew L. Sisk is an Associate Professor of the Practice in the Lucy Family Institute for Data & Society where he focuses on the use of GIS and spatial tools in Data Science. He received his B.S. from the University of South Carolina in Marine Science and Anthropology and his M.A. and Ph.D. in Paleolithic Archaeology from Stony Brook University in 2011.  His research focuses on human- environment interactions, the spatial scale of environmental toxins and community data.

 

Sisk CV

CSSR Data Science Consultant

Address: 622 Flanner Hall

Phone: 574.631.3696

Email: yxu6@nd.edu

Yang Xu is a Data Science Consultant for the Center for Social Science Research. In 2017, he earned a master's degree in Applied and Computational Mathematics and Statistics from the University of Notre Dame. Before coming to Notre Dame, he worked as a civilian nuclear power engineer. In his current role, he develops Bayesian models and performs data analysis embedded with machine learning algorithms. His research interests include convolution and recurrent neural networks.

Associate Director of Applied Analytics

Dr. Yanfang (Fanny) Ye is a Collegiate Associate Professor of Computer Science and Engineering at the University of Notre Dame. Her research interests include Cybersecurity, Data Mining, Machine Learning, and Health Intelligence. Her proposed techniques by advancing capabilities of AI have been incorporated into popular commercial cybersecurity products that protect millions of users worldwide. She has also expanded her research to health intelligence focusing on combating opioid epidemic and COVID-19 crisis.

CSSR Data Science Consultant

Address: 616 Flanner Hall

Phone: 574.631.8025

Email: jyoung22@nd.edu

Jessica Young is a Data Science Consultant for the Center for Social Science Research. She graduated summa cum laude as a Commonwealth Honors Scholar from Westfield State University in 2014 with a B.A. in Mathematics and a B.A. in Economics. In 2017 she completed her master's thesis entitled "Predicting Cholera Positive Cases in Haiti," graduating from Rochester Institute of Technology with her M.S. in Applied Statistics. She frequently uses R and focuses on utilizing machine learning methods to solve problems.