26 results for author: Megan Price
HRDAG’s Year in Review: 2022
This past year at HRDAG has been about continuing efforts to uncover the truth.
HRDAG’s Year in Review: 2021
When I reflect on what this past year has meant for HRDAG, two things leap to mind: service and partnership.
We’ve spent an uncountable number of hours working closely with our partners, helping them understand how data science can be used to answer questions about human rights violations. Doing this work reminds me of the public health concept of accompaniment, in which solidarity and compassion are just as important as the science. When we partner with organizations, we’re doing more than providing technical expertise: we’re on their side.
Our 2021 year in review, Partnering for Justice, highlights some of our thoughts on what it ...
HRDAG’s Year in Review: 2020
Beyond Statistics highlights how we’ve been able to provide clarity on issues related to the pandemic, police misconduct, and more.
In Solidarity
We stand with our partners and every organizer fighting for justice.
How Many People Will Get Covid-19?
HRDAG has authored two articles in Significance that add depth to discussions around infection rates.
A Model to Estimate SARS-CoV-2-Positive Americans
We’ve built a model for estimating the true number of positives, using what we have determined to be the most reliable datasets—deaths.
HRDAG’s Year End Review: 2019
Enjoy this look at our highlights from the past year, made possible by our generous funders.
HRDAG’s Year End Review: 2018
Reflecting on our work and identifying the highlights that illustrate HRDAG's priorities and successes.
The UDHR Turns 70
We're thinking about how rigorous analysis can fortify debates about components of our criminal justice system such as cash bail, pretrial risk assessment and fairness in general.
HRDAG and #GivingTuesday 2018
Will you help HRDAG advance human rights?
Patrick Ball wins the Karl E. Peace Award
Patrick Ball won the Karl E. Peace Award for Outstanding Statistical Contributions for the Betterment of Society at the 2018 Joint Statistical Meeting.
Reflections: A Love Letter to HRDAG
On the anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, HRDAG executive director Megan Price tells us why she loves her work, and why she feels hopeful about the future.
HRDAG and #GivingTuesday 2017
Help us hold human rights violators accountable!
Our Thoughts on #metoo
Violence against women in all its forms is a human rights violation. Most of our HRDAG colleagues are women, and for us, unfortunately, recent campaigns such as #metoo are unsurprising.
Our Thoughts on the Violence in Charlottesville
This week, we join our friends and colleagues in feeling horrified by the violence in Charlottesville, Virginia. As we have for the past 26 years, we stand with the victims of violence and support human rights and dignity for all. We spend our careers observing and documenting mass political violence across the world. The demands by the so-called “alt-right” to normalize racism and social exclusion are all too familiar to us.
At HRDAG, our work is always guided by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR). We reaffirm our commitment to these principles, in particular that the “recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and ...
Letter from the Executive Director
Dear Friends,
This has been quite a year, and I don’t just mean the recent political events in the United States, Europe and the Middle East.
Thanks to your ongoing support, HRDAG has a number of accomplishments to be proud of this year:
Patrick’s testimony in the trial of Hissene Habré for crimes against humanity was cited by the judges three times in their determination of guilt.
We launched a book describing ten years of collaborative work with the Historic Archive of the National Police in Guatemala.
We contributed quantitative analyses to Amnesty International’s report on deaths in Syrian custody, and published an ...
Rapid response to: Civilian deaths from weapons used in the Syrian conflict
On November 4, 2015, the BMJ published our "Rapid Response" to Civilian deaths from weapons used in the Syrian conflict (BMJ 2015;351:h4736). The response was co-authored by Megan Price, Anita Gohdes, Jay Aronson (Carnegie Mellon University, Center for Human Rights Science), and Christopher McNaboe (Carter Center, Syria Conflict Mapping Project).
We have three concerns about this article. First, the article apportions responsibility for casualties to particular perpetrator organizations based on a single snapshot of territorial control that ignores the numerous (and well-documented) changes in this phenomenon over time. Second, combining Syrian ...
When Data Doesn’t Tell the Whole Story
This blog is a part of International Justice Monitor’s technology for truth series, which focuses on the use of technology for evidence and features views from key proponents in the field.
As highlighted by other posts in this series, emerging technology is increasing the amount and type of information available, in some contexts, to criminal and other investigations. Much of what is produced by these emerging technologies (Facebook posts, tweets, YouTube videos, text messages) falls in the category we refer to as “found” data. By “found” data we mean data not generated for a specific investigation, but instead, that is generated for ...
HRDAG Offers New R Package – dga
Much of the work we do at HRDAG involves estimating the number of undocumented deaths using a statistical technique called multiple systems estimation (MSE, described in more detail here). One of our goals is to make this class of methods more broadly available to human rights researchers. In particular, we are finding that Bayesian approaches are extremely valuable for MSE. Accordingly, we are pleased to offer a new R package called dga (“decomposable graphs approach”) that performs Bayesian model averaging for MSE.
The main function in this package implements a model created by David Madigan and Jeremy York. This model was designed to ...
Syria: No word on four abducted activists
Razan Zatouneh is an esteemed colleague of ours, and we are one of 57 organizations demanding immediate release for her and the three other human rights defenders still missing.
A year on, no information on Douma Four
The prominent Syrian human rights defenders Razan Zaitouneh, Samira Khalil, Wa’el Hamada and Nazem Hamadi – the Douma Four—remain missing a year after their abduction, 57 organizations said today. The four were abducted in Duma, a city near Damascus under the control of armed opposition groups. They should be released immediately, the groups said.
On 9 December 2013, at about 10:40 pm, a group of armed men stormed into the ...