The Center for Social Science Computation and Research

March 30, 2026

CSSCR Spring 2026 Newsletter

Spring quarter brings much activity around CSSCR. First, there is the beauty of the blooming cherry trees that captures our attention. Soon business turns to students scrambling to finish senior research projects or their Undergraduate Research Symposium projects.

CSSCR offers many resources to support students doing research in the social sciences. Our data consulting services can help students find relevant data sets for their research. Our drop-in consulting service can assist students in wrangling their data into a useable form, and can help students at any stage of their statistical or qualitative analyses. CSSCR also offers workshops on data analysis and analytical methods (see below). This quarter, we will also have workshops on how create an academic research poster using PowerPoint. Finally, for students, faculty and staff in our member units, CSSCR can print posters for course presentations or for the Undergraduate Research Symposium.

Our services are open to faculty, staff, and students in our member units. Consulting service is made available to the whole university community. We look forward to serving you this quarter.

Darryl Holman

*****************************************************************************
*****************************************************************************

CSSCR Workshop Offerings Spring Quarter 2026

***Workshops are listed in the order of the dates they will be delivered***

****************************************************************************

Introduction to Agentic Coding with Codex

Description: Codex is OpenAI’s coding agent, a software that has access to your project’s files and can generate code, reorganize your directories, and make slides and reports. This workshop teaches the integration of Codex with Visual Studio Code. Note: although Codex is currently available to those with a free ChatGPT subscription, it is likely that on the date of the workshop it will require a $20/month level plan. This workshop is great for you if you have already accessed or plan to access a “Plus” level subscription.

  • Instructor: Tynan Challenor, CSSCR Consultant
  • Date: Tuesday, April 21, 2026
  • Time: 9:00am – 10:20pm
  • Location: Savery 121 (Small Lab)
  • Register here.

****************************
****************************

A Gentle Introduction to Developing Neural Networks in Python

Description: This workshop provides a practical introduction to building neural networks in Python using the Keras deep learning framework. Participants will learn the core concepts behind neural networks and how to implement them through clear, hands-on examples. The session will cover preparing data, defining model architectures, training models, and evaluating performance using Keras within the Python ecosystem. By the end of the workshop, participants will understand the basic workflow for developing neural network models and will have the tools needed to begin experimenting with their own machine learning applications. Participants are expected to have familiarity with programming in python. No prior experience with Keras or Neural Networks is required.

  • Instructor: Yale Quan, CSSCR Consultant
  • Date: Friday, April 24, 2026
  • Time: 2:30pm – 3:20pm
  • Location: Savery 121 (Small Lab)
  • Register here.

*****************************
*****************************

Introduction to R

Description: This workshop aims to introduce basic tools and functions of R for reading, management and examining datasets. Attendees are assumed to have little to no experience with R

  • Instructor: Alireza Aminkhaki, CSSCR Consultant
  • Date:  Tuesday, April 28, 2026
  • Time: 2:00pm – 3:20pm
  • Location: Savery 121 (Small Lab)
  • Register here.

*****************************
*****************************

Data Wrangling in R

Description:  This workshop will cover some of R’s useful tools for data management and exploration. Most of class will be devoted to learning Hadley Wickham’s excellent “tidyr” and “dplyr” packages. Attendees are assumed to have basic familiarity with R/RStudio.

  • Instructor:  Victoria Sass, CSSCR Consultant
  • Date:  Wednesday, April 29, 2026
  • Time: 11:30am – 12:50pm
  • Location: Savery 117 (Big Lab)
  • Register here.

*****************************
*****************************

Atlas.ti for Qualitative Thematic Analysis

Description: This workshop provides a practical introduction to working in ATLAS.ti, by marrying the fundamentals of the qualitative methodology with the functionality of this program. This will include conceptualizing and creating quotations, codes, memos, and comments followed by establishing thematic relationships through systematic analysis. The hands-on course assumes no familiarity with Atlas.ti, however, requires CSDE Terminal Server student access (sign up here with UWNetID).

  • Instructor: Baishakhi Basu, CSSCR Consultant
  • Date:  Wednesday, April 29, 2026
  • Time: 3:00pm – 4:20pm
  • Location: Savery 121 (Small Lab)
  • Register here.

*****************************
*****************************

Introduction to STATA 13

Description: In this crash course, we will cover topics from viewing, cleaning, to graphing data in Stata. The lab computers have the software installed.

  • Instructor: Biying Zheng, CSSCR Consultant
  • Date: Friday, May 1, 2026
  • Time: 8:30am – 9:50am
  • Location: Savery 121 (Small Lab)
  • Register here.

****************************
****************************

Creating Research Posters in PowerPoint (for the Undergraduate Research Symposium)

Description: This workshop covers the mechanics of putting together a research poster for scholarly communications using PowerPoint. In this version of the workshop, participants will create a sample poster that matches the size requirement for the Undergraduate Research Symposium.

  • Instructor: Darryl Holman, CSSCR Interim Director
  • Date: Monday, May 4, 2026
  • Time: 10:30am – 11:50am
  • Location: Savery 117 (Big Lab)
  • Register here.

*****************************
*****************************

Geospatial Analysis in Python

Description: This workshop introduces core concepts and tools for working with spatial data in Python, providing overview for geospatial data models, vector analysis with Shapely/GeoPandas, and raster processing with GDAL. Participants are encouraged to take an introductory Python course but not required.

  • Instructor: Yuying Xie, CSSCR Consultant
  • Date:  Monday, May 4, 2026
  • Time: 1:30pm – 2:50pm
  • Location: Savery 117 (Big Lab)
  • Register here.

*****************************
*****************************

Creating Research Posters in PowerPoint (for course presentations)

Description: This workshop covers the mechanics of putting together a research poster for scholarly communications using PowerPoint. In this version of the workshop, participants will create a sample poster that matches the size requirement for course presentations.

  • Instructor: Darryl Holman, CSSCR Interim Director
  • Date: Tuesday, May 12, 2026
  • Time: 12:30pm – 1:50pm
  • Location: Savery 117 (Big Lab)
  • Register here.

*****************************
*****************************

*****************************
If you have questions or problems registering please send a note to CSSCR@uw.edu.
*****************************

ICPSR access at CSSCR

CSSCR maintains the UW’s membership in the Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR). All members of the UW community have direct access to ICPSR’s data archive of over 9,900 studies. Please contact us (csscr@uw.edu) if you have questions or need more information about using this resource for accessing data or adding your data to the ICPSR repository. ICPSR new data releases and other news can be found here.

CSSCR in-house data sets

CSSCR maintains an extensive catalog of data sets beyond those available through ICPSR. Please contact us for more information about data sets you are looking for. This quarter, we have added four new data sets to our collection:

  • 2024 American Community Survey 5-Year (2020–2024) Summary File for WA
  • 2024 American Community Survey 5-Year (2020–2024) Summary File for US
  • 2024 American Community Survey 5-Year (2020–2024) PUMS for WA
  • 2024 American Community Survey 5-Year (2020–2024) PUMS for US

****************************
****************************

About CSSCR

The Center for Social Science Computation and Research (CSSCR) is an interdepartmental computer center in the College of Arts and Sciences at the University of Washington. CSSCR provides facilities and consulting support for computing activity related to teaching and research at the University for our member departments, schools, and centers.

Hours of Operation

CSSCR is primarily an in-person service

Drop in In-Person Consulting (Savery 119)—no appointment needed just stop on by!

Hours: Monday-Friday 8AM—6PM

If you prefer an online meeting during the above times, e-mail csscr@uw.edu  with your question or problem and we will arrange a Zoom meeting or answer your questions via e-mail.

Main office and other services (Savery 110)

Main office is open Monday-Friday 9AM-5PM — Please send queries to csscr@uw.edu.

We are closed weekends and for all University holidays.
**********************************************************************

Contact Us:

Center for Social Science Computation & Research
University of Washington
110 Savery Hall
Box 353345
Seattle, Washington 98195 U.S.A.
(206) 543-8110    csscr@uw.edu   http://csscr.washington.edu

CSSCR workshops are open to members of the UW community without regard to race, national origin, sex, identity or any other protected class status. If you would like to request academic accommodations for a disability, please contact Disabled Student Services, 448 Schmitz, 543-8924 (V/TDD). If you have a letter from Disabled Student Services requesting academic accommodations, please present the letter to Darryl Holman at CSSCR to discuss the necessary classroom accommodations.

University of Washington Terms and Conditions of Use   Send mail for questions or comments about this newsletter.