ERIC A. AUTRY
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Grinnell Research Projects ​Summer 2023
Remember you must also submit a MAP application
​by Sunday, Feb. 26 at 11:59 pm.

​

Gerrymandering - Representatives in the United States are elected from local regions called "districts," which are drawn by state legislators every 10 years as part of the census process. The idea behind these localized districts is that voters who live physically near each other (as defined by being part of the same district drawn on a map) will likely share problems and issues, and should therefore be represented by the same elected official. Gerrymandering is the manipulation of this redistricting process to advantage or disadvantage a particular group, class, or race of people. Broadly, the issues in identifying Gerrymandering involve deciding how to measure what a "fair" redistricting would be, how to measure the actual redistricting against this theoretical fair process, and then making meaningful conclusions about the conformance of the actual redistricting to the theoretical fair redistricting. This project will be a continuation of work related to identifying and quantifying Gerrymandering across the country. Prerequisites: CSC 151. Preference may be given to students who have completed CSC 161 and/or CSC 208 (or Math equivalent). First and Second Years are encouraged to apply.
Some research I helped author is here: 
  • Metropolized Multiscale Forest Recombination for Redistricting, Multiscale Modeling & Simulation, vol. 19 no. 4 (January, 2021), pp. 1885-1914, Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics (SIAM)
  • Metropolized Forest Recombination for Monte Carlo Sampling of Graph Partitions, arXiv:1911.01503 (accepted to SIAM journal on Applied Mathematics)
Iowa Racial Traffic Data Analysis - One of the biggest civil rights issues in Iowa right now involves the rate at which traffic stops, citations, and arrests disproportionately affect people of color within the state. Part of the problem with addressing these concerns is acquiring the necessary police data for analysis. Recent attempts to mandate data collection in the Iowa General Assembly have been unsuccessful. I am currently a member of the NAACP Legal Redress Committee for Iowa and Nebraska, and a former member has provided us with traffic data for the Des Moines Metro Area. He painstakingly collected this information from individual police departments and other government organizations over the past few years. While this data is a few years old (since it took so long to collect), it is currently the only data available, and is in need of analysis. The goal of this summer project is to analyze the data and provide a clear summary for the committee to have a tool to pursue remedies through official or legal channels. Prerequisites: Completed coursework through CSC 207, CSC 208 (or MAT 218), and STA 209.
Some reports from the Des Moines police are found here:
April 2022 - Law Enforcement Data Report
April 2022 - Code Enforcement Data Report

    Summer Math Research 2023

    No more than 500 words
    No more than 500 words.
    No more than 500 words for each project
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“You've got to jump off cliffs and build your wings on the way down.”
-- Ray Bradbury

“Alcuin was my name.  Learning I loved.”
-- Epitaph, Alcuin of York 
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