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This course is a workshop for students who have taken the introductory Geographical Information Systems course and want to explore detailed applications. The course will meet two times a week for a lecture and a laboratory exercise. Prerequisite: A previous GIS course.

• Term - Spring 2010
• Time - Monday, Wednesday, Friday at 10am
• Location - TBD
• Eligibilty - Registered undergraduate and graduate students
• Coordinator - Sumeeta Srinivasan

Visit the Faculty of Arts and Sciences course site and the Events page for more information.

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This workshop is a forum for graduate students, faculty, and visiting scholars to present and discuss work in progress.  It features a tour of Harvard's statistical innovations and applications with weekly stops in different disciplines. Occasional presentations are given by invited speakers.

• Time - Wednesdays, 12:00 PM to 2:00 PM
• Location - Rm K354, 1737 Cambridge St (CGIS Knafel Building)
• Eligibility - Open to members of the Harvard community
• Coordinator - Matt Blackwell

Visit the Faculty of Arts and Sciences course site for detailed schedule information, and see the Events page for information about this semester's workshop.

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The objective of this colloquium series is to serve as a forum for two somewhat diffuse intellectual communities that have developed tools to study connectedness, loosely gathered around the concepts of complex systems and social networks respectively.

• Time - 12:00 PM, a light lunch is served
• Location - TBD
• Eligibility - Open to members of the Harvard community
• Coordinator - David Lazer

Visit the Harvard Kennedy School's Colloquium web site for further information, and the see Events page for specific details about this semester's colloquium.

Files

Cambridge_Colloquium_on_Complexity_and_Social_Networks_Spring_2009.pdf

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The Faculty Discussion Group on Political Economy, chaired by Professor Jeffry Frieden and co-sponsored by the IQSS and the Weatherhead Center, holds weekly informal luncheon meetings. Papers on a wide range of topics in political economy are chosen collectively the previous week and sent to approximately 50 faculty members from various schools and departments. A free-wheeling discussion of the paper ensues among the faculty who attend.

• Time - Tuesdays, 12:00 PM to 1:30 PM
• Location - Rm K450, 1737 Cambridge St (CGIS Knafel Building)
• Eligibility - By invitation only
• Coordinator - Jeff Frieden

Visit the Weatherhead site for detailed schedule information and links to download papers. Also see the Events page for more information about specific dates and times.

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This course provides a basic understanding of how remote sensing data (satellite imagery and aerial photographs) and Geographic Information Systems (GIS) can be used to visualize and analyze archaeological data. Students will learn basic techniques for acquiring, manipulating and creating geospatial data in several forms, from pixel-based satellite imagery and digital terrain models to point, line and polygon representation of archaeological data

• Term - Expected to be given again in 2010-2011
• Eligibility - Registered graduate students
• Coordinator - Jason Ur

Visit the Faculty of Arts and Sciences course site and the Events page for further information.

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This class provides a forum for graduate students in Government and other relevant departments to learn techniques in statistical methods and formal theory to supplement their research. The GMMC is organized around a schedule of talks, each designed to teach about a specific technique, model, or problem in political methodology or formal modeling. Each talk introduces the audience to an important technique or model, presents the math underlying the concept, discusses its applications (current or potential) to political science, offers an evaluation of the technique's strengths and weaknesses, and finishes with recommended references for further reading. 

We currently are soliciting presenters for the academic year. If you are interested in giving a talk, please contact the coordinators with preferred dates and a short description of the proposed topic. In most cases, presentations last about an hour, with Q & A both during and after the talk.

• Time - Fridays, 3:00 PM to 4:30 PM
• Location - Rm S450, 1737 Cambridge St (CGIS Knafel Building)
• Eligibility - Open to members of the Harvard community; participants and presenters outside the Government Department are especially enouraged to get involved
• Coordinators - Evan Schnidman and Brandon Stewart

See the Events page for detailed information about this semester's class.

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This workshop provides a forum for graduate students in government, economics, and Political Economy & Government (PEG) to discuss their research related to political economy. As the primary purpose of the workshop is to serve as an informal forum for graduate students to discuss and circulate ideas, papers on other topics also are welcome. We welcome presentations of research at various levels of completion, from proposals to polished papers.

• Time - Fridays, 12:00 PM to 1:30 PM
• Location - Rm S450, 1730 Cambridge St (CGIS South Building)
• Eligibility - Open to members of the Harvard community; focus is on the pre-dissertation work of graduate students
• Coordinators - Alisha Holland and Sparsha Saha

See the Events page for detailed information about this semester's workshop.

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Failures of confidentiality threaten research integrity, reputation, legality, and funding. Every researcher in the social, behavioral and health sciences must understand how to manage confidential information in research. Successful management of confidential information is particularly challenging because it requires satisfying a combination of complex legal, statistical and technological constants. And the management of this information has grown increasingly challenging because of recent changes in the law, new forms of data collection, and advances in statistical methods for linking data.

This tutorial provides a framework for identifying and managing confidential information in research. It is most appropriate for mid-late career graduate students, faculty, and professional research staff who actively engage in the design/planning of research.  The course will provide an overview of the major legal requirements governing confidential research data; and the core technological measures used to safeguard data. And it will provide an introduction to the statistical methods and software tools used to analyze and limit disclosure risks.

This series will be taught by Micah Altman, Ph.D., Senior Research Scientist, Institute for Quantitative Social Science
Archival Director, Henry A. Murray Research Archive

Contact info: http://maltman.hmdc.harvard.edu/

For more information, please go to Events.

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This is an introductory level course in the conceptual and analytic tools used to understand how spatial distributions of exposure impact on processes and patterns of disease. It covers methods that allow: (i) examination of patterns of health and disease in place and time, (ii) application of geospatial technologies and methods for epidemiology, (iii) analysis of time-space relations, (iv) identification of clusters and diffusion of disease, and (v) study of geographical epidemiology of selected infectious and noninfectious diseases. Although there are no prerequisites for this course, students are highly encouraged to take one of the workshops on ArcGIS offered by the CGA.

• Term - Spring 2009
• Time - Monday and Wednesday, 8:30 AM to 10:20 AM (lecture)
              Friday 9:00 AM to 10:20 AM (lab)
• Location - Kresge 203 (lecture), Kresge 209 (lab)
• Eligibilty - Registered graduate students
• Coordinator - Marcia Castro

Visit the Harvard School of Public Health's course site and the Events page for further information.

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Quantitative and formal modeling courses at Harvard require mathematics and computer programming. It is becoming increasingly difficult to take courses in political economy, American politics, comparative politics, or international relations without encountering game-theoretic models or statistical analyses. Flipping through the latest issues of the top political science journals makes it clear that mathematics have entered the main-stream of political science. Even political philosophy has been influenced by mathematical thinking. Unfortunately, most undergraduate political science programs have not kept up with this trend, and first-year graduate students often find themselves lacking in basic technical skills.

This course is not intended to be an introduction to game theory or quantitative methods. Rather, it introduces basic mathematics and computer skills needed for quantitative and formal modeling courses offered at Harvard.

• Time - TBD; takes place before the fall term of each academic year
• Location - CGIS K354
• Eligibility - Incoming government students with the graduate program, must register through the instructor
• Coordinator - Patrick Lam

See information on the AY10 session.

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This workshop is a biweekly interdisciplinary forum for the presentation and discussion of current research that uses a psychological and empirical orientation to examine the microfoundations of citizen and elite behavior. Our topics include but are not limited to identity, emotion, culture, beliefs, preferences (including public opinion and individual preferences), rationality, norms, cognition, group dynamics, ethnic politics, context effects, attribution, information, bargaining, and trust. This is a methodologically plural forum open to faculty, graduate students, and other members of the academic community.

• TIme - Biweekly on Fridays, 12:00 PM to 1:30 PM
• Location - Rm K401, 1737 Cambridge St (CGIS Knafel Building)
• Eligibility - Open to members of the Harvard community
• Coordinator - Eitan Hersh and Katie Levine

See the Events page for specific details about this semester's workshop.

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IQSS and the MIT Political Science Department sponsor a regular seminar series on formal and quantitative political research. The Program on Positive Political Economy (PPE) supports research-related activities that integrate the study of economics and politics, whether by studying economic behavior in the political process or political behavior in the marketplace. In general, positive political economy is concerned with showing how observed differences among institutions affect political and economic outcomes in various social, economic, and political systems, and how the institutions themselves change and develop in response to individual and collective beliefs, preferences, and strategies.

• Time - Selected Thursdays, 4:30 PM to 6:00 PM
• Location - Massachusetts Institute of Technology
• Eligibility - All interested faculty and students
• Coordinator - Gabrielle Stone

See the Events page for details about this seminar's seminars.

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Conducting innovative research increasingly requires resources that exceed those readily on-hand to the individual scholar. Research funding can be used to access a wider set of research methods, to accelerate your research project, expand its scope and depth, and increase its impact. This short course provides an overview of the types and sources of funding available for research support, and introduces the fundamental elements of planning, proposal writing, and management for sponsored projects. The course is geared toward junior faculty, postdocs, and graduate students (in late stages or on the job market), who are new to the funding process, are considering whether to seek funding from new sources, or would like a systematic review of the grant writing and review process.

• Time - All sessions are from 9:30 AM to 4 PM
  Note: Classes are scheduled regularly, based on demand. There are approximately 35-40 spots per workshop.  Please contact the coordinator for more information.
• Location - Rm K262, 1737 Cambridge St (CGIS Knafel Building)
• Eligibility - Open to members of the Harvard community; advanced registration required.
• Coordinator - Gabrielle Stone

Please also see Micah Altman's Guide to Obtaining Funding in the Social Sciences and the Events page.

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The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Scholars in Health Policy Core Seminar provides an arena for scholars and members of the academic community to meet regularly and discuss current issues in the area of health care policy.

• Time - Tuesdays, 12:30 PM to 1:30 PM
• Location - Rm 224E, 180 Longwood Ave
• Eligibility - Open to members of the Harvard community, please RSVP for lunch
• Coordinator - Sage Kochavi

Visit the IQSS RWJ Scholars web site for a description of the seminar, and see the Events page for this semester's times and dates.

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Introduces the fundamental statistical and mapping tools needed for analysis of environmental and social policy. Topics are linked by environmental and social themes and include spatial statistics; surface estimation; raster algebra; suitability modeling and remote sensing. Students acquire technical skills in both mapping and spatial models. Software packages used include STARS (Space-Time Analysis of Regional Systems), GeoVISTA, ArcGIS, Geoda. and MULTISPEC.

• Term - Spring 2010
• Time - Wednesday, 1:00 PM to 3:00 PM
• Location - TBD
• Eligibility - Registered graduate and undergraduate students
• Coordinator - Sumeeta Srinivasan

Visit the Faculty of Arts and Sciences course site and the Events page for further information.