Professor Elvin Wyly and Graduate Student Luke R. Barnesmoore recently founded The University of British Columbia Urban Studies Lab as an extension of their work with the California based 501(c)3 Center for Critical Interdisciplinary Studies.
Falling in line with cutting edge contemporary digital humanities research, the lab aims to bring together an interdisciplinary group of graduate and undergraduate students to collaborate in the development of data analytics visualization software, analytic, theoretical and methodological approaches for implementation of data analytics visualization software in Social Science and Humanities research and applied research using/testing new tools.
The Center for Critical Interdisciplinary Studies 501(c)3 (CCIS) is a California based nonprofit founded in fall of 2013 by Luke R. Barnesmoore. The non-profit bridges disciplinary boundaries that exist between natural science, electrical engineering and computer science, social sciences and the humanities in order to provide the public with new plateaus of perspective to broaden understandings and deepen questions concerning the world we live in and the many challenges we face therein. From issues concerning data analytics, to permaculture, sustainable energy and sustainable construction, the CCIS and the UBC Urban Studies Lab will work together to explore a variety of pressing social, environmental and technological issues.
As stated by Dr. Wyly, “The central mission of CCIS is to mobilize the exponential advances in open-source data processing possibilities to refine and synthesize critical theories in philosophy, international relations, sociology, cultural studies, geography, and urban studies. Data and information are co-evolving, at an accelerating pace, with the processes by which groups form ‘publics’ and share consciousness in dynamic online discourse communities—which in turn interact in and with the physical settings of cities and suburbs that are at once familiar and yet newly transformed by the constant informational acceleration of mobile devices.”
If you are interested in finding out more information on CCIS and projects happening with the Urban Studies Lab, please see the organization’s website: http://www.c-c-i-s.org/#our-story
A Department of Geography Press Release
By Luke Barnesmoore
