EP#87 - Data Politics and COVID-19 - Denice Ross and Allison Plyer

Today, I talk with Denice Ross and Allison Plyer.

 

Denice Ross is a Director at the National Conference on Citizenship and a Fellow at Georgetown’s Beeck Center. Her recent focus is on data quality and the 2020 Census and she also provides strategic support for the State Chief Data Officer Network. Denice comes to this work from New America, where she studied the power of networks to advance progress on big challenges. As a Presidential Innovation Fellow (2014-5), she co-founded the White House Police Data Initiative to increase transparency and accountability and worked with the Department of Energy to improve community resilience in disaster-impacted areas. Earlier, she served as Director of Enterprise Information for the City of New Orleans, establishing their open data initiative, now recognized as one of the most successful in the country. Prior to government, Denice co-directed The Data Center of Southeast Louisiana, a non-profit data intermediary. She brought a data-driven approach to numerous post-Katrina community planning initiatives and co-founded the first new childcare center after the storm.

 

Allison Plyer is the Chief Demographer for The Data Center of Southeast Louisiana. Dr. Plyer is co-author of The New Orleans Prosperity Index which examines the extent to which economic outcomes have improved for black New Orleanians since the end of the Civil Rights era. She is also author of The New Orleans Index series, developed in collaboration with Brookings to analyze the state of the recovery post-Katrina and later to track the region’s progress toward prosperity. She served as an editor for the Brookings Institution Press volume entitled “Resilience and Opportunity: Lessons from the U.S. Gulf Coast after Katrina and Rita.” Allison is an international expert in post–Katrina demographics and disaster recovery trends and frequently provides commentary on recovery and development to media such as NPR, the Associated Press, the New York Times, and USA Today. Allison received her Doctorate in Science from Tulane University and has an MBA in marketing and organizational behavior from the Kellogg Graduate School of Management.