Conference-palooza!

The last quarter of 2020 brought a schedule full of presentations! We were grateful to share what we’ve been learning with national audiences. Here’s a sample of what we’ve been Zooming-in on.

APPAM 2020 Fall Research Conference

We were thrilled to participate in a number of sessions at APPAM's 42nd Annual Fall Research Conference! David Yokum flexed his cross-sector collaboration muscles and lent his expertise on a number of sessions, including a roundtable discussion on policy development in a time of crisis, a discussion on how to manage a fusion of bureaucratic and academic writing for impact during a government crisis, and a panel on the persistence and decay of the effects of behaviorally informed interventions over time.

We were particularly excited to round up a contingent of our staff and RI government partners for a roundtable discussion on designing policy-relevant, predictive models through active stakeholder engagement. A big thank you to Maria Messick from the Office of Governor Gina Raimondo, Jen LoPiccolo from the Office of College and Career Readiness at RIDE, and our own team at the Lab: David, Head of Data Science Kevin Wilson, and Project Manager Attiyya Houston for their hard work and making the panel happen!

Learn more about these panels and APPAM 2020 here.

Behavioural Public Policy Journal - Behavioural Climate Policy Event

Turns out it's not just political ideology that forms your view on hot-button topics like climate change! Nat Rabb, a Project Manager here at The Lab, joined the Behavioural Public Policy Journal’s summit on behavioural climate policy to present his recent research with Lab Fellow Steve Sloman explaining how our sense of understanding of public policies is conferred by experts' understanding.

Click here to take a deeper dive into their research.

Design Week RI

From developing clear visual materials to streamlining data collection, designers have been integral to the COVID-19 response. This was the topic of the 2020 Design Week RI panel, “Design in Crisis: How the COVID-19 Crisis illustrates Social Impact Design.” Enter our Head of Design, Ben Guhin Delphine!

Ben showcased how he and the team at The Lab used design thinking and principles to optimize the COVID-19 testing user experience, including forms, signage, and the testing sites themselves.

Ben recently left his position at The Policy Lab to take up an exciting new role with the US Digital Service, though he will remain a valuable member of our wider community of practice. We wish him all the best!