Rising to the Challenge:
Engaging Diverse Perspectives on Issues and Evidence
November 7 - 9, 2019 | Sheraton Denver Downtown Hotel | Denver, Colorado
Conference Activities
As our 41st annual meeting, the APPAM 2019 Fall Research Conference will be a multi-disciplinary research conference attracting the highest quality research on a wide variety of important current and emerging policy and management issues. The current political context underscores the value of bringing together researchers and practitioners with a wide range of perspectives to engage the evidence and discuss how best to improve public policy. We hope that the theme, Rising to the Challenge: Engaging Diverse Perspectives on the Issues and Evidence, will encourage a conference with conversations that reach across disciplinary, methodological and ideological divides.
This page details the activities that are most highly anticipated at this year's conference, including the Preliminary Program, Pre-Conference Workshop, Innovation Lounge, Networking Opportunities, Special Events, and Student Resources.
Pre-Conference Workshop
Deploying Machine Learning Tools for Public Policy Impact
Wednesday, November 6, 2019
11:00 am - 5:00 pm
I.M. Pei Tower - Majestic Level - Majestic Ballroom
Join us the day before the Fall Research Conference kicks off for this year's pre-conference workshop: Deploying Machine Learning Tools for Public Policy Impact. Attendees can register for the workshop during the full conference registration process, opening on July 15th. There is a separate registration fee to attend.
Workshop Description:
Organized by: Alexandra Chouldechova, Carnegie Melon University; Jens Ludwig, University of Chicago; and Sendhil Mullainathan, University of Chicago
Speakers: Jason Anastasopoulos, University of Georgia; Peter Bergman, Columbia University; George Chen, Carnegie Mellon University; Alexandra Chouldechova, Carnegie Melon University; Jennifer Doleac, Texas A&M University; James Evans, University of Chicago; Jens Ludwig, University of Chicago; Sendhil Mullainathan, University of Chicago; Aaron Roth, University of Pennsylvania; Chenhao Tan, University of Colorado, Boulder; Stefan Wager, Stanford University
While public policy analysis as a field has had considerable impact by helping to answer key causal questions, many policy decisions hinge not on a causal inference but instead on a prediction: Which defendants are too high risk for a judge to release from jail as they await adjudication of their case? Which calls of potential child abuse are most likely to reflect actual abuse? Which students are at elevated risk for dropping out of school, and so should be prioritized for academic supports? Which households are most likely to be eligible for social services but unlikely to be enrolled in them? Which chronically ill low-income patients are most likely to miss doctor’s appointments or forget to refill or take their prescription medications, and so might particularly benefit from home visits or reminders?
The growing availability of government administrative records (‘big data’) combined with new tools from the computer science field of machine learning create important new possibilities for substantial impact across a broad range of policy problems. These new machine learning tools share some similarities with the usual policy analysis tool-kit (regression, matching, etc.), but do have some important differences in their goals and methods. They also make it possible to draw on new sources of data that policy analysts historically have not even recognized as data, such as written text, audio clips, or video images.
At the same time, re-deploying these machine learning tools to policy problems raises new challenges that are quite different from those associated with canonical computer science applications, which create important opportunities for the field of policy analysis to add value. These include: challenges in evaluating the social impact of algorithms in the presence of outcome data that is non-randomly missing, as the result of the decisions of humans in the existing policy system; potential mis-alignment between what is being predicted and the objectives that policymakers are trying to optimize; and the possibility of algorithmic bias, and how that compares to human bias.
The workshop seeks to provide an accessible introductory overview to machine learning tools, illustrate the range of policy problems to which they can be applied, develop understanding of what makes for a good policy application for these tools, what can go right (and wrong), and where and how policy analysts can add value to making progress on these problems. We will also include some discussion about how machine learning tools can be useful for solving the sort of causal inference problems that have traditionally been the focus of policy analysis work.
Schedule
| 11:00 AM – 11:10 AM |
Welcome and Introduction
Alex Chouldechova, Jens Ludwig and Sendhil Mullainathan |
| 11:15 AM – 12:00 PM |
SESSION 1: INTUITION ABOUT MACHINE LEARNING TOOLS AND HOW THEY WORK
Alex Chouldechova and Sendhil Mullainathan |
| 12:05 PM – 1:05 PM |
SESSION 2: NEW DATA SOURCES THAT MACHINE LEARNING TOOLS CAN BE USED WITH
Jason Anastasopoulos, James Evans and Chenhao Tan |
| 1:15 PM – 2:15 PM |
LUNCH
1:05 - 1:20 grab food
1:20 - 1:45 brainstorm
1:45 - 2:15 report out
|
| 2:30 PM – 3:15 PM |
SESSION 3: WHAT TYPE OF POLICY PROBLEMS MAKE FOR GOOD ML APPLICATIONS, AND WHY?
Peter Bergman and Stefan Wager
|
| 3:15 PM – 3:25 PM |
Coffee Break
|
| 3:25 PM – 4:10 PM |
SESSION 4: WHAT NEW CHALLENGES ARISE WHEN APPLYING ML TOOLS TO POLICY PROBLEMS?
George Chen and Jens Ludwig |
| 4:15 PM – 5:00 PM |
SESSION 5: ALGORITHMS AND FAIRNESS
Jennifer Doleac and Aaron Roth |
Pre-Conference Training for New Professionals
Impact Policy With Your Research
Wednesday, November 6, 2019
3:00 pm - 5:00 pm, followed by a Happy Hour, 5:00 pm - 6:00 pm
Plaza Building - Concourse Level - Plaza Ballroom E
Join this pre-conference, interactive workshop that will focus on specific strategies for reaching policymakers and affecting policy with your research.
Speakers:
Molly Irwin, Vice President, Research and Science, The Pew Charitable Trusts
Jenni Owen, Director of Strategic Partnerships, Office of the North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper
Mike Shires, Associate Dean for Academic Strategy and Special Projects, Pepperdine School of Public Policy
Workshop leaders will highlight approaches for
- Communicating in ways that policy officials will actually pay attention to
- Sharing your research in ways that policy officials may actually use it
- Identifying opportunities for engagement between researchers and policymakers that have the potential for lasting partnership and impact on policy and your future research
You can register for this free event during the registration process. If you have already registered and want to add this event to your registration, please email registration@appam.org.
Innovation Lounge
Introduced at the 2018 Fall Research Conference, the Innovation Lounge is an easy-to-access space where experienced researchers are invited to meet and share cutting-edge research with conference attendees. Innovation through diversity will be a major theme of this conference, so we strongly encourage our attendees to do just that in the Innovation Lounge!
Sessions are 45-minutes and will be scheduled throughout the full three-day conference. This year, the Innovation Lounge will be held in a closed room near registration to make it easier to network and collaborate. Please note that the programming featured in the Innovation Lounge will be discussion based and informal. No presentation technology will be available.
Thursday, November 7
8:30 am - 9:15 am
10:15 am - 11:00 am
1:45 pm - 2:30 pm
Friday, November 8
8:30 am - 9:15 am
10:15 am - 11:00 am
1:45 pm - 2:30 pm
Saturday, November 9
8:30 am - 9:15 am
10:15 am - 11:00 am
Positions in Policy
APPAM is pleased to announce the APPAM Positions in Policy (PIP) program. The program connects job seekers who plan on attending the Fall Conference with organizations who will be conducting interviews and potentially hiring at the conference. The employers will contact job candidates directly to set up onsite interviews at the conference for open positions. Those positions may be for a variety of job functions, both academic and non-academic, to appeal to job seekers at all levels including students, postdocs, and early- and mid-career professionals. When available, the positions being interviewed for at the conference will be noted on our Job Listings page.
Employers
As a complimentary service to all APPAM Institutional Members and $150 for non-Institutional Members, simply send us your open positions and we'll include them on our Job Listings page. We can post both positions that will be interviewed for at the conference and those that will have a separate interview process. To post a position, please send the title, a brief description, and the link back to the position on your website to Gabbie Sylvester, gsylvester@appam.org.
APPAM will also provide complimentary, private space for PIP participants to host interviews. There will be three interview rooms at the confernece that may be reserved in one-hour increments throughout the conference days. Once you reserve the space, you have access to the room for the entire time on the date of your reservation. At the conclusion of the reservation times each day, the room will be refreshed for use by the next organization. Each organization may reserve up to three time slots. To reserve space, please complete this form and return it to Gabbie Sylvester, gsylvester@appam.org.
For more information, please visit our Employer FAQ Page.
Job Seekers
The deadline for jobseekers to participate has passed.
For more information, please visit our Job Seeker FAQ Page.
APPAM Communities
Introducing APPAM Communities! APPAM Communities support opportunities for any group of people to meet at the conference and discuss the topics most important to them. These get-togethers, selected through a submission process, will focus on any number of shared interests or experiences, including, but not limited to, the following: race, ethnicity, gender, geographical location, methodology, or approach. This initiative builds on suggestions made by APPAM’s Diversity Committee, and other requests for additional networking opportunities in the context APPAM’s growth.
Here are all of the APPAM Communities gatherings to be held at the conference. All gatherings will be held in the APPAM Communities Lounge located near registration on the Concourse Level of the Plaza Building:
Thursday, November 7
- Indigenous APPAM
10:15 am - 11:45 am
- Early-Career Faculty
1:45 pm - 3:15 pm
- Women in Economics @ APPAM
3:30 pm - 5:00 pm
Friday, November 8
- Women in Quantitative Methods
8:30 am - 10:00 am
- PhD Candidates of Color
10:15 am - 11:45 am
- National Research Center for Hispanic Childen & Families Mentoring Event
1:30 pm - 3:00 pm
- LGBTQI
3:15 pm - 4:45 pm
Saturday, November 9
- FinTech for Financial Inclusion (F4F)
8:30 am - 10:00 am
- Exploring Careers in Research & Evaluation
10:15 am - 11:45 am
- Policy Analysts of the Coastal and Inter-Mountain West
1:30 pm - 3:00 pm
- Chinese Policy Scholars Group
3:15 pm - 4:45 pm
Special Events
Wednesday, November 6
Thursday, November 7
- Welcome Breakfast
7:00 am - 8:15 am
Plaza Ballroom DE, Plaza Building, Concourse Level
sponsored by University of Colorado, Denver and University of Denver
SOLD OUT
- Opening Lunch: How Migration is Changing the World
12:00 pm - 1:30 pm
Plaza Ballroom DE, Plaza Building, Concourse Level
Limited amount of tickets will be available for purchase onsite ($38/ticket)
(check preferred, credit card and cash accepted)
- Mentor Meet Up (Invite Only)
5:00 pm - 6:00 pm
Governor's Square 17, Plaza Building, Concourse Level
- Welcome Reception with Posters
5:00 pm - 7:00 pm
Exhibit Hall, Plaza Building, Concourse Level
Friday, November 8
Saturday, November 9
Student Resources
Students are an important part of APPAM. Because we value your contributions to the association, we are planning student specific events to be held during the Fall Research Conference. Mentorship programs, a Student Hub, networking opportunities with policy experts, the PhD Program Fair, the Equity & Inclusion Fellowship, and student-focused content are what you can anticipate for this fall. To help allow more students to attend the event, we also have volunteer roles available that include a complimentary registration.
Student Events at the Conference
- Student Hub
Thursday, November 7: 8:00 am - 5:00 pm
Friday, November 8: 8:00 am - 5:00 pm
Saturday, November 9: 8:00 am - 4:45 pm
I.M. Pei Tower - Terrace Level - Biltmore room
The Student Hub has seating areas for students to relax, network with other students, schedule time to meet with professionals, or answer a few quick emails when there's not a Student Session taking place.
Thursday, November 7
Participants in the 2019 Mentor Match Program are invited to connect at this meetup. Enjoy food and drink from the Welcome Reception, network with fellow participants, and meet your mentor/mentee in person.
Exclusive to the fellowship recipients, this new event offers another opportunity for fellows to meet and network. This event is invite only.
Friday, November 8
The recipients of the 2019 APPAM Equity & Inclusion Fellowship are invited to formally network with each other and members of the Policy Council during this luncheon. Recipients will be recognized for their accomplishments and bright futures.
- PhD Program Fair
12:00 pm - 1:15 pm
Plaza Building, Concourse Level, Plaza Ballroom F
Come meet individually with PhD program representatives and learn about the differences between programs, what being a PhD student is like, what courses a particular program offers and what kinds of benefits and services are offered to students. Talk to staff from programs across the country and get more information on whether a PhD program might be the right choice for you. A light lunch is available at this event.
The PhD Program Fair is open only to students not currently enrolled in a PhD program and professionals who do not hold a PhD.
Students and recent graduates are encouraged to attend the annual APPAM Student Mixer. The event will be an informal opportunity to network and collaborate with other student attendees. Wine, beer, and hors d'oeuvres will be provided.
Saturday, November 9
Wellness Sessions
Take advantage of free workout classes to stay refreshed and focused during the conference. The morning workouts each require an RSVP prior to the event but walk-ins are invited to participate if space allows.
Thursday: Fun Run & Walk
6:30 am – 7:30 am
Meeting Point: Main Lobby of the hotel
There are three course leaders that will run/walk at various paces to accommodate participants of all levels. Course maps will also be provided for those that prefer to run on their own. The full course is three miles, but participants are welcome to do as much or as little as they’d like. Run leaders are provided by Wolpaca Coaching of Golden, Colorado.
Friday: HIIT Workout
7:00 am – 7:30 am
Location: Plaza Building. Concourse Level, Plaza Ballroom F
Join us for a high intensity circuit workout on Friday morning! Define and strengthen your body in this awesome muscleconditioning class combining cardio and strength exercises. Be prepared to work a multitude of muscle groups while working through a series of exercises in this 30-minute class provided by Crossfit LoDo.
Saturday: Flow Yoga
6:30 am – 7:15 am
Location: Plaza Building, Concourse Level, Plaza Ballroom D-F Hallway
Join fellow attendees for a 45-minute flow class to start the day provided by Denver Yin Yoga. Mats will be provided and all levels are welcome.
Questions about the conference should continue to be directed to Tristanne Staudt.