CS Colloquium: Moon Duchin (Tufts U.)
Title: “TopDown”
Abstract: The Census will deploy a “differentially private” disclosure avoidance mechanism for its 2010 Decennial release. That is, it will intentionally introduce random noise to all the numbers that are released– but in a controlled way that you can prove theorems about. This is causing elation in some circles (e.g., CS departments) and panic in others (e.g., community organizers and voting rights litigators). I’ll talk about a year-long project with Aloni Cohen, JN Matthews, Bhushan Suwal, and Peter Wayner to explore the properties of the Census algorithm — partly by actually running the TopDown code! — with a serious eye to the civil rights impacts, especially racially polarized voting and local redistricting.
Bio: https://tischcollege.tufts.edu/people/faculty/moon-duchin
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