I am a rising Columbia University sophomore majoring in Urban Studies, Environment & Sustainability, and a 2024 Laidlaw Scholar. My summer research is with the Columbia Graduate School of Architecture, Preservation and Planning Mapping Historical New York Initiative. I digitize historical maps and census data, contributing to a digital atlas of early New York settlements, focusing on Queens and the Bronx.
My interests include urban planning and policy, green urbanism, grassroots organizing, and community storytelling. I also have a passion for transportation systems and quilting.
Recent Comments
You're brave for this Tara
super cool that you got to keep a little memory of your design!
Love this Hanna! :)
1. In the course of working on the Mapping Historical New York project, I encountered several new ideas and challenges, especially regarding data collection and digitization processes. One significant challenge was the accuracy and completeness of historical data. For instance, inconsistencies and gaps in the original census records required creative solutions such as cross-referencing city directories and non-digitized maps to confirm or infer data. This sometimes contradicted our initial assumptions about urban development patterns and required adaptations in our methodology. As the scope of my project has narrowed down to 1880 Queens, I am also currently working to find additional Enumeration District maps for areas that we don't have little to no maps for (i.e. The Rockaways). I have applied the skills I learned to street validation, street naming, as well as geometry edits. In the project, we now entered the phase of Quality Assurance & Quality Checks so we can move to a different GIS method.
Overall, these challenges and new knowledge has enriched my understanding of historical urban studies and emphasized the need for meticulous source verification and innovative data integration techniques. I have also expanded my search for understanding the demographic and industrial transformation of Queens to include the street and world grid, and deepen my research into cultural and economic impacts on urban development.
2. Research resources like physical books, oral narratives, and mostly maps themselves have been instrumental. Also, field visits to sites and collaborating with the Queens Historical Society have provided real-world insights and primary source materials, enhancing the project's depth and authenticity. I am looking forward to continuing my search during the school year, possibly adding in the NYPL. These resources have proven to be important in tracing and interpreting the spatial and demographic transformations of the boroughs over time.
Thank you so much, Tara! This is awesome, I will check it out. Looks promising already :)
Also as of right now, for neighborhoods with little maps, it mostly affects street naming but a lot of the time what we do for 1880, for example, is check 1910 maps and use those street names because it is unlikely (although still a probability!) they were different in an earlier year if there was no name recorded. We also take into account that when there is an unopened street (meaning it was never developed) so there was never a recorded name until construction occurred, if any. Can't wait to share more!
In reviewing transcripts of previous interviews conducted by my Justice Lab colleagues, I noticed they included interviewees from the more conservative southern part of the United States as well as interviewees from more democratic states. I was surprised to see that even individuals with conservative ideals and closer ties to southern culture in which criminal law standards are generally significantly stricter, talked about the issues they noticed in the criminal justice system through their own work. Specifically, wanting to try more restorative methods of justice rather than punitive or wanting to put a stop against harsher punishments such as the death penalty. Before studying these interviews, I held assumptions about law enforcement and lawyers working in specific environments that they would have a harder time changing their opinions and going against the ideology propagated by their surroundings.
Through the Justice Lab, I was able to attend conferences on Criminal Justice and also have the opportunity to talk to previously incarcerated individuals to learn about their personal experience with the justice system. I found these resources particularly useful because it enabled us to gather quantitative data from real people needed to truly understand the shortcomings of the system.
Your research sounds incredibly interesting and I think it's great that you're staying open-minded! I definitely think getting insights from different perspectives is an amazing way to go. How were the conferences??
Sounds super cool!
1. In the course of working on the Mapping Historical New York project, I encountered several new ideas and challenges, especially regarding data collection and digitization processes. One significant challenge was the accuracy and completeness of historical data. For instance, inconsistencies and gaps in the original census records required creative solutions such as cross-referencing city directories and non-digitized maps to confirm or infer data. This sometimes contradicted our initial assumptions about urban development patterns and required adaptations in our methodology. As the scope of my project has narrowed down to 1880 Queens, I am also currently working to find additional Enumeration District maps for areas that we don't have little to no maps for (i.e. The Rockaways). I have applied the skills I learned to street validation, street naming, as well as geometry edits. In the project, we now entered the phase of Quality Assurance & Quality Checks so we can move to a different GIS method.
Overall, these challenges and new knowledge has enriched my understanding of historical urban studies and emphasized the need for meticulous source verification and innovative data integration techniques. I have also expanded my search for understanding the demographic and industrial transformation of Queens to include the street and world grid, and deepen my research into cultural and economic impacts on urban development.
2. Research resources like physical books, oral narratives, and mostly maps themselves have been instrumental. Also, field visits to sites and collaborating with the Queens Historical Society have provided real-world insights and primary source materials, enhancing the project's depth and authenticity. I am looking forward to continuing my search during the school year, possibly adding in the NYPL. These resources have proven to be important in tracing and interpreting the spatial and demographic transformations of the boroughs over time.
My research is part of a larger scientific study on early life stress and memory. After studying early life stress's effect on social and short-term memory, I will continue assisting the lab in studying how early life stress reacts to certain drugs over the school year. Additionally, we are also experimenting with unsupervised learning methods and determining how an unsupervised learning model could characterize specific movements present in ELS and control mice.
Early life stress (ELS) is one of the largest predictive factors for psychiatric and cognitive disorders. Because it is difficult and unethical to study in humans, mice are an alternative model to study the impact of ELS on the behavior and neurobiology of the brain. Our greater understanding of ELS can one day help develop drugs that target impairments in the brain, particularly in the hippocampus.
Although I don't know much about neurobiology besides what we learned in Fro-Sci, your work sounds incredibly exciting! Especially because of how much stress is on the rise for early adults, this will be instrumental in supporting the youth & future generations who struggle with memory loss.
As I approach the one-month mark of the Laidlaw program, my immediate expectations for my research on the MHNY project are to contribute significantly to the digitization and analysis of historical data for Queens. This involves gathering and analyzing census data, georeferencing, digitizing historical streets, and contributing to dataset publications. While I am focusing on 1880 Queens, my work is part of a larger study aimed at expanding our understanding of New York City’s urban development across all five boroughs by the 1940 census. I plan to continue this project, possibly through August/September before the big launch along with one of the RA's who is working on some of our case study stories. Along with my efforts to support the project and understand the street network development, I am curating an open-source annotated reference list on Queens (1850s-1940s) to share for the public to view and contribute to. Lastly, I am trying to participate in my version of a case study that emphasizes town(s) in Queens: Astoria (cultural preservation) & Jamaica (industry and transportation).
My research matters because it explores how demographic shifts and industrial changes have shaped the urban landscapes of Queens. This includes the fact that we directly pinpoint residences and populations in the area to inform on urban planning, and future policies, and understand why certain areas looked and transformed in the ways they look today. Some examples include waves of immigration, changes in mobility, and/or a specific focus on a community. Researchers have already benefitted from Brooklyn & Manhattan and we hope to continue refining these details. I am continuously drawn to this project because it allows me to apply my academic interests in urban studies and sustainability practically, while also learning from a historical lens. I can pick up on GIS to see how reliable and beneficial it is as well as reflect on the nitty gritty visual changes I can trace on maps.