MIA and MPA Policy Skills II Core. Priority Registration: MIA and MPA.
This advanced course provides a comprehensive introduction to the principles and practices of effective database design, management, and security. Students will gain a strong foundation in information organization, data storage, and database administration, with attention to key topics such as data warehousing, governance, security, privacy, and alternative database models.
The course emphasizes the relational database model and includes practical instruction in Structured Query Language (SQL), data modeling, and integrity constraints. Students will learn to design, build, and manage databases while addressing contemporary issues in security and privacy. Prior experience with basic programming and data structures is recommended.
How are bodies in the world? How is the world in bodies? Building from these deceptively simple questions, ours will be an interdisciplinary reading seminar on how bodies (mostly human, but sometimes nonhuman) are made and remade in and through their environments and via their relationships to the material world. Privileging porosity as a rubric, we consider the ever-permeable boundaries between bodies and the other beings (be they viral, chemical, microbial or otherwise) with which they become entangled. Alongside the monographs under study, we will tackle article-length engagements with theories of new feminist/queer materialisms, decolonial and critical science studies. Further, a key aim of this course is to provide students the opportunity to hone some of the most important skills we have in our toolbox as academics, relative to our teaching, our public voice/s as critics, and to our own research.
MIA and MPA Policy Skills II Core. Pre-req: Quant I (SIPA IA6500). Priority Registration: MIA and MPA.
Research is an important part of the policy process: it can inform the development of programs and policies so they are responsive to community needs, reveal the impacts of these programs and policies, and help us better understand populations or social phenomena. This half-semester course serves as an introduction to how to ethically collect data for smaller research projects, with an in-depth look at focus groups and surveys as data collection tools. We will also learn about issues related to measurement and sampling. Students will create their own focus group protocol and short survey instrument designed to answer a research question of interest to them.
This seminar offers an in-depth, interdisciplinary examination of North Korea’s political system, society, foreign policy, and security strategy. Students will critically assess how outside powers influenced Korea’s division, the internal dynamics that shaped the Kim regime’s rise, and how state institutions continue to evolve. Drawing from political science, history, firsthand accounts, and policy documents, the course equips students to challenge common misperceptions and engage analytically with key questions surrounding North Korea’s economy, propaganda, human rights, gender dynamics, and nuclear posture.
MIA and MPA Policy Skills II Core. Priority Registration: MIA and MPA.
This 7-week mini-course leads the students into the R world, helps them master the basics, and establishes a platform for future self-study. The course offers students basic programming knowledge and effective data analysis skills in R in the context of public policy-making and policy evaluation. Students will learn how to install R and RStudio, understand and use R data objects, and become familiar with base R and several statistical and graphing packages. The course will also emphasize use cases for R in public policy domains, focusing on cleaning, exploring, and analyzing data.
Local and global fields, group cohomology, local class field theory, global class field theory and applications.
MIA and MPA Policy Skills II Core. Priority Registration: MIA and MPA.
This course introduces students to the principles and practices of data visualization as a powerful tool for interpreting and communicating complex information. As large datasets become increasingly available across sectors, the ability to transform raw data into clear, compelling visuals is essential for insight and decision-making.
Students will learn to select appropriate visualization types, apply design techniques that balance form and function, and tell analytic stories with clarity and impact. Through hands-on assignments and guided case studies, the course builds practical skills in visualizing data to uncover patterns, reveal trends, and engage diverse audiences.
MIA and MPA Policy Skills II Core. Pre-req: Computing in Context (DSPC IA6000). Priority Registration: MIA and MPA.
This course introduces students to the fundamentals of Artificial Intelligence (AI), its applications in public policy, and its implications for the future of governance. Students will gain a foundational understanding of AI, including the mathematical and programming principles behind common machine learning algorithms used for prediction, classification, and clustering. The course explores the practical applications of AI across various sectors, including business, non-profits, and government, highlighting its transformative potential. In the final segment, students will apply their knowledge to design AI solutions for public policy challenges. Through a "Concept to Implementation" process, student groups will identify problems, navigate data and algorithmic considerations, and propose actionable AI-driven solutions.
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MIA and MPA Policy Skills II Core. Priority Registration: MIA and MPA.
In the past two years, Large Language Models (LLMs) built using transformer frameworks have emerged as the fastest-growing area of research and investment in AI/machine learning. Recent releases of chatbots such as ChatGPT (OpenAI), Bing (Microsoft), and Bard (Google) quickly reached hundreds of millions of users and have become the face of artificial intelligence for consumers. There has also been an explosion in the number of applications that depend on LLMs for a variety of more specialized tasks. Recent models have shown impressive performance on both canonical machine learning tasks and for everyday use, yet are in many ways poorly understood and, in some cases, exhibit unexpected and potentially harmful behavior.
Policymakers, analysts, and non-profit and industry leaders need an understanding of these models to take advantage of the opportunities they present and to mitigate potential harms. This course provides an overview of Large Language Models and gives students hands-on experience with various ways of interacting with LLMs. Students will learn to interpret model evaluation metrics, and we will discuss safety and ethics in applied contexts.
MIA and MPA Policy Skills II Core. Pre-req: Quant I (SIPA IA6500)
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Priority Registration: MIA and MPA.
Data is not neutral. How it is collected, categorized, and analyzed is shaped by historical, political, economic, and social forces, often reinforcing existing injustices. While policy professionals are trained in quantitative methods, there is comparatively less focus on interrogating how data itself is produced, how existing frameworks exclude certain populations, and how data can be used to either reinforce or challenge inequities.
This course introduces students to inclusive and decolonial approaches to working with data for policy research and advocacy, emphasizing critical engagement with its lifecycle—from collection to analysis to dissemination. Students will examine how statistical tools, methods, and available data can be utilized to either reinforce or dismantle barriers to opportunity and address structural injustices. Through weekly discussions, hands-on coding exercises, and a research or advocacy project sketch, students will examine a range of data sources and methodologies while developing strategies for ethical, community-centered data practices.
Selected advanced topics in data-driven analysis and computation. Content varies from year to year, and different topics rotate through the course numbers 6690 to 6699.
Selected advanced topics in data-driven analysis and computation. Content varies from year to year, and different topics rotate through the course numbers 6690 to 6699.
Selected advanced topics in data-driven analysis and computation. Content varies from year to year, and different topics rotate through the course numbers 6690 to 6699.
Prerequisites: One year each of Chemistry, Physics, Calculus and Earth Sciences Overview This course explores the origin of magmas and their subsequent movements; their ascent, stalling and eruption; their transport of heat and mass through the earth; their formation of crust and creation of volcanoes. The course will explore magmatism itself - its chemical and physical underpinnings - and also develop magmatic tools used to understand other earth processes. Topics will be focused around Grand Questions. Example questions include: What do magmas tell us about the thermal structure of the earth? Why do magmas store and stall where they do? What drives the largest eruptions on Earth? Does continental extension drive melting or melting drive extension? Questions will evolve to reflect the state of the field and student interest. The course is designed to serve as an accessible breadth course for Earth Science graduate students in any discipline.
Applications of spoken language processing, including text-to-speech and dialogue systems. Analysis of speech and text, including entrainment, empathy, personality, emotion, humor, sarcasm, deception, trust, radicalization, and charisma.
This course examines the rise and demise of the Chinese Revolution from the unique angles provided by avant-garde writers, artists, designers, graphic novelists, filmmakers, playwrights, and theatre directors in modern China.
Continuation of IEOR E6711, covering further topics in stochastic modeling in the context of queueing, reliability, manufacturing, insurance risk, financial engineering, and other engineering applications. Topics from among generalized semi-Markov processes; processes with a non-discrete state space; point processes; stochastic comparisons; martingales; introduction to stochastic calculus.
Basic statistics and machine learning strongly recommended. Bayesian approaches to machine learning. Topics include mixed-membership models, latent factor models, Bayesian nonparametric methods, probit classification, hidden Markov models, Gaussian mixture models, model learning with mean-field variational inference, scalable inference for Big Data. Applications include image processing, topic modeling, collaborative filtering and recommendation systems.
This course introduces students to the field of social work and the law – specifically the practice of social work in legal settings. Students will develop competency in forensic social work practice - working knowledge as a practitioner in an interdisciplinary setting representing clients entangled in legal systems including criminal, civil, family and immigration. Students will deconstruct the complexities of the criminal legal systems and further develop awareness in addressing clients’ concerns related to their criminal justice history – pre-arrest, arrest, disposition and re-entry. Similarly, students will gain insight into the filing of Article X petitions in family court and the pathway of a child protection case. This course complements field placements in legal/forensic settings, law minors and students interested in social work and law rooted in rights-based advocacy. This course is premised on a basic understanding of how the legacy of slavery led to mass criminalization and incarceration. Black Lives Matter.
The course will focus on understanding the theory and varied practices of restorative justice (RJ) and transformative justice (TJ), and how they are being used as alternatives to retributive and punitive responses to social problems and individual, community and institutional harm. Students will learn – through modeling and practice – how to facilitate a restorative circle which can serve as the foundation for continued use of restorative practices in social work. The class will provide an understanding of the values and principles of RJ and R, and the most-commonly used RJ models and where they are being used. It will support students in understanding their own relationship to conflict and teach students how to facilitate restorative processes using peacemaking circles. Issues of power, privilege, oppression and identity will be substantial themes throughout the course, both in understanding the need for RJ and TJ, how RJ/TJ can address them, and the ways in which these issues arise in facilitation and the RJ/TJ movement. In addition to understanding RJ, the course will also provide students with a critical analysis of other theories and practices of conflict resolution including mediation, truth and reconciliation, and transitional justice, and how all of these relate to addressing individual, communal and institutional harm. Finally, the course will discuss how social workers can use restorative justice in a variety of settings.
Understanding why people behave the way they do, what makes them change their behavior, and how these factors relate to health status and quality of life is critically important for public health professionals. The evidence for the role of individual behavior in all the major health problems throughout the world is indisputable. Equally indisputable is the complex array of factors that combine to produce behavior and deter behavior change. The purpose of this course is to build upon the material presented in the Core in order for students to be able to use individual, interpersonal, organizational and community level public health theories to explain and change health behavior.
Introduction to quantum detection and estimation theory and its applications to quantum communications, quantum radar, quantum metrology, and quantum tomography. Background on quantum mechanics, quantum detection, composite quantum systems, Gaussian states, and quantum estimation.
Computational imaging uses a combination of novel imaging optics and a computational module to produce new forms of visual information. Survey of the state-of-the-art in computational imaging. Review of recent papers on omnidirectional and panoramic imaging, catadioptric imaging, high dynamic range imaging, mosaicing and superresolution. Classes are seminars with the instructor, guest speakers, and students presenting papers and discussing them.
A strategic surprise can be defined as a seemingly abrupt change during warfare or bilateral relations that is unexpected in timing, location, and scope. Traditionally, this term has been applied within the framework of decision-making and policy formulation during conflicts. However, a broader perspective sees strategic surprises not only as sudden attacks that fundamentally alter the conflict landscape but also as political developments that lead to dramatic paradigm shifts – such as the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 or the end of the apartheid regime in South Africa.
This course addresses pivotal moments that have dramatically disrupted conventional paradigms in the Middle East conflict, a conflict marked by surprising events yet persistently resistant to long-lasting transformative progress. By examining occurrences of strategic surprise, including the wars of 1948, 1967, and 1973; Sadat’s peace initiative; the Oslo Accords; and the October 7 attack by Hamas, we will investigate the tension between a seeming stagnation and the potential for sudden shifts – for Peace or War. Through case studies and theoretical frameworks, students will analyze how these dynamics shape policy, conflict, and peace processes, gaining tools to critically address historical patterns and behaviors that continue to shape the region.
This immersive, two-day workshop examines the concept of a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict through the lens of historic negotiation efforts, most notably the Camp David Summit (1999–2001). Guided by former Israeli and Palestinian negotiators, students will explore the political, legal, and narrative frameworks that have shaped these peace talks, with particular attention to the components of Palestinian statehood.
Through structured simulation, analysis of historical documents, and engagement with practitioners, the workshop will deepen students' understanding of negotiation dynamics, the role of state recognition, and the impact of historical narratives on diplomacy. Issues such as refugees, Jerusalem, security, and diplomatic recognition will be addressed only insofar as they relate to the establishment of a Palestinian state.
To register for this course, you must join the waitlist in Vergil and submit an application:
https://forms.gle/ku43fs8WwtgRNPte7
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Obesity is a serious condition that increases risk for type 2 diabetes, heart disease, stroke, certain types of cancer, and several other deleterious health outcomes. The US and NYCare facing an Obesity epidemic that threatens not only to cause increasingly severe health consequences but also billions of dollars in annual medical costs. Moreover, for the first time in decades, it threatens to reduce the life expectancies of today's youth by overwhelming public health improvements brought about in the 20th century. Numerous secular trends have precipitated the dramatic increases in obesity that have occurred over the past several decades. This course will provide a broad overview of the socio-cultural factors associated with the obesity epidemic; identify promising strategies for intervention; and enable students to craft and assess multi-pronged solutions to this multi-factorial problem.
The need for more effective and equitable engagement with communities has become increasingly evident to public health professionals in recent years. Now, more than ever, the importance of developing deeper and more engaged academic/institutional-community partnerships is necessary to address systems of structural inequity. However, developing these relationships requires not only knowledge of equity-based partnering formats, but the cultivation of complex skill sets that allow public health practitioners to most fully develop relationships across all phases of community collaboration. Two valuable forms of community engagement that public health practitioners and students can make use of are community-based participatory research and service learning, which are the focus of this course. Additionally, this course acknowledges that community engagement is a diverse space where people from a variety of professional and personal backgrounds come together. For many years, people working in the technology space have recognized the benefits of “matrixed teams,” similarly over the past few years the notion of interprofessionalism has become an important and required aspect of allied health and public health professional training. Research has shown that bringing together students from two or more professions to learn about, from, and with each other is extremely effective in all forms of collaboration (within research and intervention teams and with communities) and ultimately lead to improved health outcomes. According to the World Health Organization, “Once students understand how to work interprofessionally, they are ready to enter the workplace as a member of the collaborative practice team. This is a key step in moving health systems from fragmentation to a position of strength.” Pinsert course number – insert studio name 2 of 24 The overall goal of this course is for students to learn about and begin to practice the tenets of three frameworks: Interprofessional Education (IPE), Service-Learning (SL), and Community?Based Participatory Research (CBPR). With regard to interprofessional engagement, the course will provide students with a solid understanding of four key IPE competencies: roles/responsibilities, teams/teamwork, ethics/values, and communication. Complementing this, the course will introduce and integrate SL pedagogy to prepare students to engage in community service projects. The SL model prioritizes three aspects of project implementation: student learning, direct attenti
The first essential step in the process of designing successful public health programs is to understand the needs that motivate these programs and the assets that can be brought to bear on developing them. The purpose of this course is to enable students to perform specific steps in a needs and assets assessment and to plan how to facilitate participation by those who will be affected by a resulting program. The assessment process encompasses two main components: an epidemiologic, behavioral, and social analysis of a community and population at risk for a health-related problem; and an effort to understand the character of the community, its members, and its strengths.
At the start of the course, we will discuss pre-assessment work which includes planning to put together a work group for planning the needs and assets assessment. We will touch on essential elements of encouraging participation, work-group management, and culturally sensitive practice. Simultaneously, we will create a logic model of a selected health problem using Step 1 of Intervention Mapping which employs an adapted version of the PRECEDE part of the PRECEDE-PROCEED model. Using this model, students will fully define their population and context for their assessments, posing questions, and choosing methods and data sources for completing each part of the logic model of the problem selected (heretofore referred to as the Logic of Risk). At the same time, we will cover various approaches and data sources for assessing a community’s strengths/assets. Finally, we will discuss post-assessment tasks including setting priorities and setting program goals for health and quality of life outcomes.
Further study of areas such as communication protocols and architectures, flow and congestion control in data networks, performance evaluation in integrated networks. Content varies from year to year, and different topics rotate through the course numbers 6770 to 6779.
Further study of areas such as communication protocols and architectures, flow and congestion control in data networks, performance evaluation in integrated networks. Content varies from year to year, and different topics rotate through the course numbers 6770 to 6779.
This intensive two-day workshop examines North Korea’s nuclear program within the broader security dynamics of the Indo-Pacific region. Students will explore how North Korea’s ambitions intersect with U.S.-China strategic competition and the evolving roles of Japan, South Korea, India, and other regional actors. Topics include extended deterrence, crisis escalation, alliance management, economic statecraft, and the linkage between Korean Peninsula security and Taiwan Strait tensions.
To register for this course, you must join the waitlist in Vergil and submit an application:
https://forms.gle/t6ZxptA5YyB6cd6RA
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This six-week interactive online workshop will teach students the fundamental concepts and skills of digital storytelling. Digital stories are multimedia movies that combine photographs, video, animation, sound, music, and text with a narrative voice. Digital storytelling can be a powerful, multi-dimensional tool for community-based public health program enhancement, strategic communication, and advocacy (Hinyard & Kreuter, 2007). Students will share first-person narratives about public health passions and/or experiences and turn them into videos that can be used for training, community mobilization, advocacy, and more. SOSCP6776 – Digital Storytelling 2 of 10 The workshop will be led by facilitators from, and with a curriculum designed by, StoryCenter. StoryCenter is an international non-profit organization that assists people with the use of digital media tools to craft and share stories that lead to learning, action, and positive change. For the past 20 years, StoryCenter has been supporting researchers, educators, social justice organizers, and advocates in understanding how first-person narrative and participatory digital media production can advance a broad range of social justice and public health goals.
The “liberal international order,” which until recently appeared inevitable to many observers, faces numerous challenges that have erupted in the past few years—including war, heightened superpower rivalry, the imposition of sanctions and tariffs, and economic stagnation. To this list, we must add a series of preexisting conditions, such as ballooning inequality and persistent North-South divides, the climate crisis, rising nationalist and xenophobic sentiment, and increasing support—on both the left and right—for protectionism and skepticism of “free trade” and (global) capitalism itself. In turn, the very utility (and desirability) of global-governance mechanisms and institutions is increasingly being called into question.
This course centers around analyzing the political economy and structure of the contemporary world order, its underlying logics, origins and inherently political nature, how it is (and is not) governed, and how power is exercised therein by actors including states, corporations, international institutions, and even individuals. As we will highlight throughout the semester, issues related to global political economy and governance shape the lives of people all over the world, including our own.
Specifically, we will discuss the origins and consolidation of today’s “liberal international order,” especially vis-à-vis its economic dimensions and the rise of global neoliberalisms, along with its trials, tribulations, and challengers, its “governance” and spatial logics, and the various forms of backlash against it that are currently proliferating. We will also carefully analyze the role of race, class, and gender in global economics and politics, as well as the persistence of colonial legacies, and the ongoing relevance of North-South and other inequalities. Additionally, we will discuss how issues such as the climate crisis, U.S.-China relations, and technological change are shaping the future trajectory of the global political-economic order (or orders).
To shed light on these and related matters, we will critically engage with the contributions of a diverse and interdisciplinary array of classic and contemporary thinkers who have sought to
theorize
the global economy, global governance, and world order, as well as the dynamic interplay between global politics and economics, in different ways.
This is a required core course for the MA in Global Thought
This course introduces the fundamental concepts and problems of international human rights law. What are the origins of modern human rights law? What is the substance of this law, who is obligated by it, and how is it enforced? The course will cover the major international human rights treaties and mechanisms and consider some of todays most significant human rights issues and controversies. While the topics are necessarily law-related, the course will assume no prior exposure to legal studies.
MIA & MPA Ethics Core.
This course investigates how ethical considerations shape, complicate, and often introduce dilemmas into the work of policymaking. It asks what justice, democracy, and responsibility demand in concrete policy contexts—should political leaders prioritize stability or accountability in post-conflict settings? Should elected officials follow their moral convictions even when doing so goes against the preferences of their constituents? Should public servants uphold the law when it conflicts with their moral principles? When is it right to work within flawed systems to achieve change, and when is it better to act from the outside? Through a mix of theoretical readings and case studies, students will learn to balance political, institutional, and ethical considerations, develop arguments for their moral choices, and advocate effectively for their policy decisions. The course is designed to cultivate reflective practitioners who can identify moral dilemmas in public policy, weigh competing values, and articulate their ethical positions in ways that are both critical and constructive.
Musicals, especially those that have traditionally originated on Broadway, are complex pieces of machinery that are designed to produce a variety of energies in the theater. When taken collectively, those energies constitute the aesthetic of the experience. As with plays, stage managers are charged with coordinating all of a musical’s production elements. However, stage managers should also be able to view a musical from every angle; that is, read it intelligently and analyze it dramatically so they can accurately gauge their contribution to the overall aesthetic. This course seeks to provide stage managers with a customized template to do that: in other words, how to connect what’s on the page and the stage to their own standard methodologies, cue calling, and the CEO/COO perspective. In the contemporary professional landscape, these are important tools that will help them optimize their work on musicals.
Many of the leading causes of mortality and morbidity disproportionately affect the populations of low-income countries. This course uses a multidisciplinary approach to analyse the emergence, justificiation and success of current global health priorities including reproductive health, child health water, infectious diseases, noncommunicable disease, mental health, and public health in complex emergencies (man made and Environmental). Students will learn to examine the social, economic, and political factors contributing to the rise of these global health priorities, learn about the different suggested approaches and tools for managing them as well be involved in the development of strategies for their solution. This course builds on Introduction to Global Health" (P6811) by demonstrating the application of major concepts and principles that govern the practice of global health in resource-poor countries."
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