Dan Bouk, a Data & Society affiliate, is the author of Democracy’s Data: The Hidden Stories in the US Census and How to Read Them and How Our Days Became Numbered: Risk and the Rise of the Statistical Individual. He teaches history at Colgate University and has been a fellow at the Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers at the New York Public Library, the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, and Data & Society. He is currently writing The Subway Job, about a successful struggle to invest in public goods and make both data and transit more accessible in New York City.
Related Resources
March 23, 2022
A Primer on Powerful Numbers: Selected Readings in the Social Study of Public Data and Official Numbers
Scholars Dan Bouk, Kevin Ackermann, and danah boyd join forces on a thought-provoking resource that begins to explore the power of official numbers and public data. In A Primer on…
A Primer on Powerful Numbers: Selected Readings in the Social Study of Public Data and Official Numbers
Scholars Dan Bouk, Kevin Ackermann, and danah boyd join forces on a thought-provoking resource that…
March 23, 2022
In House Arrest: How An Automated Algorithm Constrained Congress for a Century, Data & Society Faculty Fellow Dan Bouk reveals how an automated algorithm implemented in the 1930s…
House Arrest: How an Automated Algorithm Constrained Congress for a Century
In House Arrest: How An Automated Algorithm Constrained Congress for a Century, Data & Society…
April 14, 2021
Report
Audio
January 5, 2021
Census Evolution: From White Supremacy to Racial Justice – Count on Your Census
"When the founding framers mandated a Census in the U.S. Constitution, their vision was to generate a database of information about American households and the communities where…
Census Evolution: From White Supremacy to Racial Justice – Count on Your Census
"When the founding framers mandated a Census in the U.S. Constitution, their vision was to generate…
January 5, 2021
Audio
There is no one "truth" to data.
Error, Uncertainty, and the Shifting Ground of Census Data
There is no one "truth" to data.
May 26, 2020
Article
The census count cannot be delayed by COVID-19.
The Census Day that matters most
The census count cannot be delayed by COVID-19.
April 1, 2020
Article