CAISS Autumn/Winter talk series: Mobile Phone Data Reveal the Effects of Violence on Internal Displacement by Assistant Professor Xiao Hui Tai

Talk title: Mobile Phone Data Reveal the Effects of Violence on Internal Displacement
Abstract: Nearly 50 million people globally have been internally displaced due to conflict, persecution, and human rights violations. However, the study of internally displaced persons (IDPs) — and the design of policies to assist them — is complicated by the fact that IDPs are often under-represented in surveys and official statistics. We develop an approach to measure the impact of violence on internal displacement using anonymized high-frequency mobile phone data. We use this approach to quantify the short- and long-term impact of violence on internal displacement in Afghanistan, a country that has experienced decades of conflict. Our results highlight how displacement depends on the nature of violence. High-casualty events, and violence involving the Islamic State, cause the most displacement. Provincial capitals act as magnets for people fleeing violence in outlying areas. Our work illustrates the potential for non-traditional data sources to facilitate research and policy-making in conflict settings.

We are lucky to have secured Dr Xiao Hui Tai as our guest speaker in December.  This talk will take place towards the end of the day here in the UK as this will be first thing in the morning in the United States.

Xiao Hui Tai is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Statistics at U.C. Davis. She is interested in using large-scale, granular sources of data, and statistical and machine learning methods, to measure and study human behaviour. Much of her work uses non-traditional data, such as those from mobile phones and satellite imagery, to study problems in the developing world. Her current research is focused on estimating the social and economic consequences of violent conflict. Previously, Xiao Hui was a postdoctoral researcher at the School of Information at U.C. Berkeley, and received a Ph.D. in Statistics from Carnegie Mellon University. She was previously a statistician with the government in Singapore, and also spent some time as a quantitative modeller at J.P. Morgan Chase.

To join the online presentation, please email caiss@lancaster.ac.uk or join CAISS here.