Secure Data Platform

Colin Swaney, Senior Research Software Engineer & Eric Manning, Research Data Engineer

Computational social science often relies on large datasets containing sensitive and/or proprietary data. Unfortunately, universities are often poorly equipped to support such datasets, and the solutions arrived at by researchers are often inefficient, insecure, and/or arrived at after unnecessary trial and error. DDSS has identified a need for a new research platform for social scientists that combines security with scalable computational power and partnered with Databricks to provide a solution. Still in testing, the new platform will be able to host massive datasets—structured or unstructured—that can be easily and securely shared by researchers. It will provide access to on-demand computational resources capable of supporting researchers’ most challenging computational tasks. Our RSE group will be involved in designing the workspace, building and maintaining data pipelines, and standardizing common data tasks.