Join our leading social scientists as they consider cutting-edge quantitative and qualitative methodologies, analyse the logic underpinning an array of approaches to empirical enquiry, and discuss the practicalities of carrying out research in a variety of different contexts
Planetary Causal Inference: combining computer vision and earth observation to analyse disparities in health and living conditions among neighbourhoods in Africa, 1990 to date.
Planetary Causal Inference explores how social science can benefit from Earth observation (EO) data to advance understanding of humans as a species and their impact on their environment, society, and economy. Traditional methods relying on tabular data, like surveys and national statistics, are costly and sometimes limited in scope, hindering planetary-scale analysis. EO data gathered via satellites offer a complementary approach that captures global, real-time information, enabling researchers to study phenomena like urbanization, inequality, poverty, conflict, and deforestation at fine spatial and temporal resolutions.
We introduce the emerging field of causally-oriented EO-based machine learning (ML), where spatial data derived from images are analysed using advanced ML models to create proxies for social science metrics and for use in causal inference pipelines. We discuss how these planetary causal inference methods can produce high-resolution insights about global social issues, providing new ways to assess a range of other phenomena.
By combining insights from geography, history, and multi-scale analysis, Planetary Causal Inference lays a foundation for researchers to address broad, integrated questions across multiple resolutions, such as household, neighbourhood, regional, and global scales.
Next week: Professor Sanyu A. Mojola on Friday 28 November, from 2.00pm to 3.00pm
Death by Design: Producing Racial Health Inequality in the Shadow of the Capitol
Washington, DC, the capital of the United States, has the nation's largest racial life expectancy gap, and it has experienced many of the nation's worst epidemics, including maternal and infant mortality, homicide, heroin overdoses, and HIV/AIDS. These epidemics have disproportionately affected African Americans. Why and how does racial health inequality exist and persist?
Starting from the city's founding in the late 1700s until 2022, and drawing on a range of sources—including archival material, life history interviews, and census, vital statistics, and disease surveillance data—this book illustrates how the physical, social, and policy design of the city contributes to the production and reproduction of disproportionate Black death.
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Our seminars take place in person during Autumn and Winter term and are free and open to all, LSE students and staffs and external participants. Light refreshements provided.
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Find recordings of some of our past seminars on YouTube.
Events archive
Autumn Term
Quantifying the effect of research policies governing scientific editors. Fengyuan 'Michael' Liu,Global PhD Fellow, Data Science and AI Lab, New York University, Abu Dhabi
The limits of explainability for reducing algorithmic discrimination. Dr Kate Vredenburgh, Assistant Professor, Department of Philsophy, Logic and Scientific Method, London School of Economics
The Tools of Racial Disenfranchisement: Lessons from 135,457 Individual Voter Records. Dr Daniel de Kadt - Assistant Professor, Department of Methodology, London School of Economics
Public Service Decline and Support for the Populist Right: Evidence from England's National Health Service. Dr Zachary Dickson - LSE Fellow, Department of Methodology, London School of Economics
Winter Term
Causal Representation Learning with Generative Artificial Intelligence: Application to Texts as Treatments. Professor Kosuke Imai - Professor of Government and of Statistics, Harvard University.
Security from Below: A Hermeneutic-Contextualist Methodology for Studying Marginalised Security Actors. Dr Bohdana Kurylo, LSE Fellow.
Mediating Transnational Mining Disputes in Liberal Democracies. The Ghanaian Case. Dr Isaac Haruna Ziaba, LSE Fellow.
Comparing the Performance of Machine Learning Ensembles for Multilevel Regression and Poststratification Models.Dr Lucas Leemann- Associate Professor of Comparative Politics, University of Zurich.
Just a Number?: Age Misstatement and the Old-Age Pension in Colonial Ireland. Dr J. Andy Harris, Associate Professor, Division of Social Science, New York University, Abu Dhabi.
Visions of Financial Order: National Institutions and the Development of Banking Regulation.Dr Kim Pernell, Assistant Professor of Sociology, College of Liberal Arts, University of Texas.
Autumn Term
Digi-queer Criminology and Addressing the Rise of Anti-LGBTQ+ Hate. Dr Justin Ellis - co-hosted with The Mannheim Centre, Department of Social Policy.
Are Campaign Promises Effective? Dr Michael Ganslmeier (Department of Methodology, London School of Economics).
Analysing Age, Period, and Cohort effects using Scenario Trajectory Analysis with applications to political interest and social trust.Professor Patrick Sturgis and Professor Jouni Kuha (Department of Methodology, London School of Economics).
What chance of change? Reflections from participatory research on poverty across recurrent crises by Ruth Patrick and Maddy Power. Professor Ruth Patrick (Social Policy, University of York).
Why are things this way? Reflections on a coproduced artwork as research. Dr Eileen Alexander (Department of Methodology, London School of Economics).
Winter Term
Collecting public opinion in fragile and conflict states – the challenges and the rewards. Johnny Heald(CEO, ORB International).
Qualitative methods for studying social security benefits: methodological reflections on an ongoing project. Dr. Kate Summers (British Academy Postdoctoral Fellow, Department of Methodology).
Race, Class, and What Else? Policies and Politics in Four American Cities. Professor Jennifer Hochschild (Professor of Government & Professor of African and African American Studies, Harvard University).
Polarization over the Priority of Political Problems. Professor Benjamin Lauderdale, Professor of Political Science, University College London.
Temporalities and timelines in the aftermath of Grenfell.Professor Flora Cornish, Professor in Research Methodology, Department of Methodology.
Spring Term
Climate Change Migration: Lessons from a Longitudinal Mixed Methods Study of Hurricane Katrina. Professor Mary Waters, Professor of Sociology, Harvard University.
