Project Leadership
Equity Center: Michele Claibourn, Barbara Brown Wilson, Charlene Green, Erika Viccellio
University Partners: Environmental Resilience Institute, Andrew Mondschein, University of Virginia Libraries
Community Partners: C3, Cultivate Charlottesville, HEARR, Legal Aid Justice Center, PHA, PHAR, Wildrock
Overview: The Democratization of Data Initiative centers community-driven partnership to provide advocates as well as civic-and private-sector leaders with data and metrics, contextualized analysis, interactive maps and data visualizations, and narrative storytelling as a resource in pursuit of equity throughout the region. Projects within the Initiative are governed by civic-and community-based leaders and rely on both publicly available and community generated data to generate insights on the various forms of racial and socio-economic inequity in the region with an eye toward institutional accountability.
Guided by principles of justice, openness, accessibility, and reproducibility, these projects highlight critical assets in our region and underscore opportunities for collective action toward institutional and systemic change.
Highlights: The research team behind the Democratization of Data initiative partnered with community organizations to produce data visualizations and accessible reports on varied topics and secured funding through Public Interest Technology University Network and UVA 4VA grants. We were able to produce works that looked at COVID-19 vulnerability, transportation equity, climate justice, and eviction susceptibility. In the spring of 2021, the Equity Center hired Dr. Michele Claibourn on full time as the Director of Equitable Research. We are excited to see how this important community focused work can expand under her focused leadership. In addition to the research highlighted here and below, our team was able to speak publicly about the importance of equitable data in several venues.