Connor T. Jerzak

Cool workshop upcoming this May -- join if you can.

"We take rationality seriously, but should we? Why is a rational agent better in some respect than an irrational one? Is rationality just instrumentally useful, or does it have intrinsic value?"

ejerzak.github.io

lpmec: Measurement Error Analysis and Correction Under Identification Restrictions Implements methods for analyzing latent variable models with measurement error correction, including Item Response Theory (IRT) models. Provides tools for various correction methods such as Bayesian Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC), over-imputation, bootstrapping for robust standard errors, Ordinary Least Squares (OLS), and Instrumental Variables (IV) based approaches. Supports flexible specification of observable indicators and groupings for latent variable analyses in social sciences and other fields. Methods are described in a working paper (2025) &lt;<a href="https://doi.org/10.48550%2FarXiv.2507.22218" target="_top">doi:10.48550/arXiv.2507.22218</a>&gt;.

New on CRAN: lpmec (1.1.4). View at https://CRAN.R-project.org/package=lpmec

International Roundtable on Computational Social Science: Bedoor AlShebli "The science of science... and its human side" Welcome to the International Roundtable on Computational Social Science with Bedoor AlShebli, New York University (NYU) Abu Dhabi. The seminar is open to...

Join us on Thursday, 29 January, at *13:30 CET for the International Roundtable on Computational Social Science with
Bedoor AlShebli (NYU Abu Dhabi)

🔹 The Science of Science... and its Human Side 🔹 More info: liu.se/en/event/int...

FastRerandomize site: fastrerandomize.github.io
Paper (forthcoming in SoftwareX): arxiv.org/abs/2501.07642

FastRerandomize unites batched candidate generation, key-only storage & design-respecting inference, while using the SoTA in accelerated computing (T/GPU). That design delivers order‑of‑mag speedups & enables tighter covariate balance in high-dim experiments⇢more precise causal estimates, lower cost

The remains of Gresham castle photographed with a regular camera and how it looks with a LiDar drone camera.

Texas Methods Conference 2026 Please answer the following questions to indicate your interest in attending and/or participating at our conference, which is scheduled to take place on Friday and Saturday, February 20-21, at Texas A...

Calling those looking to get feedback on their quant work📢: Join us at @TexasAM for TexMeth2026 this Feb. Great opportunity to connect with the regional community and showcase your research. The sun will still be strong for those coming from the north!🤝📊☀️

Apply: docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...

College of Liberal Arts | The University of Texas at Austin Liberal Arts at UT offers over 40 majors and many top-ranked graduate programs in the social sciences and humanities taught by 750 faculty.

Application information: liberalarts.utexas.edu/government/g...

More about Austin: connorjerzak.com/ut-austin/

Application deadline for UT Austin Gov - PhD admissions is 12/10 this cycle. More information below. I am hearing that the Department will not be shrinking its cohort this admission cycle!

The 8th European Conference on Social Networks (EUSN 2026) The 8th European Conference on Social Networks (EUSN 2026) will take place on 11–15 August 2026 in Norrköping, Sweden, hosted by the Institute for Analytical Sociology (IAS), Linköping University. The conference brings together scholars and ...

The 8th European Conference on Social Networks (EUSN 2026) will take place on 11-15 August 2026 in Norrköping, Sweden, hosted by @iasliu.bsky.social

⌛ Deadline for workshop and session proposals: 1 December 2025

More information: liu.se/en/event/eus...

Seminar series Information about the Department of Methodology seminar series

Looking forward to giving a presentation on the planetary causal inference paradigm at Department of Methodology, LSE, today. Join us if you are around.

www.lse.ac.uk/methodology/...

poster that reads 'seminar series, 21 nov 2-3pm, professor adel daoud

Sign up for this week's Seminar Series with @adeldaoud.bsky.social

💡 21 Nov, 2 - 3pm
🌎Planetary Causal Inference: combining computer vision and earth observation to analyse disparities in health and living conditions among neighbourhoods in Africa, 1990 to date

www.eventbrite.com/e/department...

Event - Nuffield College Oxford University

If you are in the vicinity of Oxford University, join me today at 4 pm for my talk at Nuffield College. Title: "Planetary Causal Inference: combining computer vision and earth observation to..."

Link to event details: [Sociology Seminar at Nuffield College](www.nuffield.ox.ac.uk/news-events/...)

Markus B. Pettersson, Adel Daoud: Leveraging Compact Satellite Embeddings and Graph Neural Networks for Large-Scale Poverty Mapping https://arxiv.org/abs/2511.01408 https://arxiv.org/pdf/2511.01408 https://arxiv.org/html/2511.01408

"Counterfactuals. At planetary scale."
The Planetary Causal Inference (PCI) book launches soon:
planetarycausalinference.org/book-launch/

Excited to see our PhD student Andrés Cruz (@arcruz0) presenting his work "Sensitivity Bounds for Uncertainty Propagation" at LAPolMeth IX in Viña del Mar, Chile.

Catch it during the poster session on Nov 22 (12:45-14:00, Building C). Don't miss this work on uncertainty in quant social science!

Debiasing Machine Learning Predictions for Causal Inference Without Additional Ground Truth Data: "One Map, Many Trials" in Satellite-Driven Poverty Analysis Machine learning models trained on Earth observation data, such as satellite imagery, have demonstrated significant promise in predicting household-level wealth indices, enabling the creation of high-...

Debiasing ML predictions for causal inference—no new labels needed. We propose Tweedie’s correction to fix shrinkage enabling “one map, many trials.”
arxiv.org/abs/2508.01341
#CausalInference #MachineLearning #EarthObservation #PovertyMapping

Will definitely post a public version to the webpage below once final details are ironed out! Will shoot you a message once its live 🙏

connorjerzak.com/ai-programmi...

🥳 Join us in celebrating @alongcamejones.bsky.social and his legacy with the Policy Agendas Project. Excited to see what @seanmtheriault.bsky.social and Derek Epp do next! 🤟

ML wealth maps from space 🛰️ are great, but suffer from "shrinkage" bias, which waters down policy impact results (causal inference). We developed correction methods that fix this bias *without* new data.

arxiv.org/abs/2508.01341

#CausalInference #DataForGood #AI #PovertyMapping #EarthObservation

Are you interested in using earth observation data and deep learning for estimating poverty in Africa, poverty specifically? Then apply to this research engineer position at AI and Global Development Lab. More info about our research at www.aidevlab.org . Deadline is 7th Nov.

lnkd.in/ePX7VT-K

New undergrad course (UT Austin, this spring): Gov 355M - AI & Programming Foundations for Computational Social Science.

We'll treat curiosity as our raw material and AI+computation as our foundry - learning how the frontiers of technology can accelerate discovery in the social sciences + beyond.

A little less than 2 weeks to submit an abstract proposal for PolMeth - Europe. Join us in Dublin this coming May to share your new political science research using cutting edge methods!!

Check out the data paper (open access) and the publicly available data: We hope that many people will use it in their research and for other purposes.

When on-the-ground data are scarce or outdated, satellites can keep the evidence flowing. Our guide shows how to turn data from satellites into useful causal claims, improving targeting + evaluation, avoiding common issues related to resolution mismatch / leakage / spatial dependence.

Connor T. Jerzak, Adel Daoud
Remote Auditing: Design-based Tests of Randomization, Selection, and Missingness with Broadly Accessible Satellite Imagery
https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.00128

Adel Daoud, Cindy Conlin, Connor T. Jerzak: Chinese vs. World Bank Development Projects: Insights from Earth Observation and Computer Vision on Wealth Gains in Africa, 2002-2013 https://arxiv.org/abs/2509.25648 https://arxiv.org/pdf/2509.25648 https://arxiv.org/html/2509.25648

LSE's Department of Methodogy is searching for an Assistant Professor in Computational Social Science. Applicants from across the social sciences are very welcome!

Please reach out if you would like any more details.

Fall schedule for the Political Methodology Seminar Series at the UT Austin Department of Government, AY25-26 is out! Event calendar links here: connorjerzak.com/methods-seri...

Optimizing Multi-Scale Representations to Detect Effect Heterogeneity Using Earth Observation and Computer Vision: Applications to Two Anti-Poverty RCTs ArXiv link for Optimizing Multi-Scale Representations to Detect Effect Heterogeneity Using Earth Observation and Computer Vision: Applications to Two Anti-Poverty RCTs

With a new Multi-Scale Representation Concatenation method, researchers enhance satellite imagery optimization for causal inference in anti-poverty programs by revealing treatment effect heterogeneity across scales, potentially amplifying impacts without extra costs. https://arxiv.org/abs/2411.02134