About the Research Center

We use data generated by people and data about people to understand human behavior.

We study the ways in which we can use data to understand human behavior, and we address questions about how data and data processing are shaping how we work, how we live, and what it means to be a person in a networked, digitized world. We also design and build new tools for using data collections inside and outside of the University.

Our projects include uncovering the pattern of official secrecy by examining databases of declassified documents, a personalized news engine that creates a kind of algorithmic editorial voice, and a visual study of Thomson-Reuter’s Web of Science. Columbia has a long track record of startups in the new media field, including Newsblaster, MPEG, Dygest, and Musically Intelligent Machines.

We are a diverse group of creative technologists, designers and scientists. with participants from the fields of architecture, the humanities, the social sciences, education, journalism, computer science, and engineering.