The Siegel Public Interest Tech Impact Fellowship for PhD students in its third year
Siegel PhD Impact Fellowship
A cornerstone of the PiTech Initiative is the PiTech Siegel PhD Impact Fellowship program, which supports PhD students in technical fields to conduct 12-week summer externships with nonprofit and public sector organizations across NYC. Students gain exposure to the technology challenges facing public interest organizations and contribute critical skills and expertise to strategic projects that advance their host organization’s mission.
The PiTech Siegel PhD Impact Fellowship is critical to delivering on the PiTech Initiative’s stated mission of fostering the next generation of innovators, leaders, and thinkers to shape technology toward positive societal outcomes. In 2023, the PiTech Siegel PhD Impact Fellowship increased size of its cohort yet again, supporting more Cornell students to contribute their skills toward pressing public challenges.
To broaden and diversify student exposure and strengthen students’ impact, we curated a mix of partner organizations within government, civil society, and the private sector, spanning many critical subject matter domains, from accessibility, civic engagement, healthcare, sustainability, to data rights and operational efficiency. You can read about the work of each of our PhD students, the specifics of their projects, and the impact they had in their testimonials linked below.
We are honored to have them join us!
Federica Bologna (or Fede), NYC Health + Hospitals - Implementing causal inference methods and conducting interviews to enhance alert integration within providers' workflows, reducing alert fatigue.Breanna Green, Block Party - Exploring automated approaches for generating transcript data (excluding YouTube or recorded content) to distill insights related to housing.
Ge Guo (or Serena), Young Adult Institute (YAI) - Crafting immersive VR/AR experiences to aid individuals with autism and enhance their quality of life.
Rebecca Hicke, Good Call NYC - Employing data visualization techniques to present arrest data in a comprehensive and impactful manner.
Byung Jae Cho (or Jason), City of Ithaca - Utilizing modeling techniques to determine the potential number of buildings that can be electrified annually, while considering various constraints.
Zachary James, NYC Office of Emergency Management (OEM) - Exploring public data sets from weather forecasting services to design an automated weather dashboard capable of aggregating diverse weather-related data streams.
Kimia Kazemian, Oxfam - Leveraging machine learning and natural language processing to extract insights from social media content, shedding light on the national conversation surrounding Oxfam's areas of concern.
Fengyang Lin and Tuan-he Lee, Consumer Reports Digital Lab - Developing the Permission Slip project, empowering consumers to have control over how their data is utilized by companies.
Zhi Liu, NY Public Library (NYPL) - Analyzing the materials circulation system through an equity lens to ensure fair and inclusive access.
Joy Ming, NYC Civic Engagement Commission (CEC) - Designing a pipeline for city agencies to streamline the processing of participatory feedback.
Mahika Phutane, Mayor's Office of People with Disabilities (MOPD) - Creating an interactive NYC web chatbot to facilitate communication between individuals with disabilities and digital content.
