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PODCAST

Behind the Data

Andrea Jones-Rooy

Behind the Data is a podcast about the hidden stories tucked inside the data that shapes our world. From political polls to global happiness indexes, we go beyond charts and headlines to uncover where data comes from, why it’s collected, and what we can (and cannot!) learn from it. Each episode explores a fascinating dataset that helps us better understand the systems, policies, and people around us. Whether you"re new to data or work with it every day, you"ll find approachable conversations,

education social sciences

All Episodes

40:31

What's actually in US jobs data?

Behind the Data ·

2025/09/08

Data about the US labor market has been all over the headlines of late -- but what's actually in these numbers? Beyond the recent political upheaval surrounding the August 1, 2025, jobs report, the process of translating complex and nuanced things like labor market activity into numbers, and then making sense of those numbers while also being mindful of long-term deeper trends that might affect those interpretations -- is super fascinating and important.In this episode we talk with Ben Casselman,

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40:41

Why don't we do what makes us happier?

Behind the Data ·

2025/08/23

We all want to be happier, yet we often avoid the very actions that research shows would actually improve our happiness. We talk with social psychologist Lara Aknin about her work as editor of the World Happiness Report and director of the Helping and Happiness Lab to explore what we know about what makes us happy, and why we don't do more of those things. From the surprising happiness boost we get from acts of generosity to why reaching out to old friends feels harder than it should, we unpack why

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0:55

Season 3 trailer

Behind the Data ·

2025/08/19

Welcome back to another season of exploring the world through the magical, clarifying, and thought-provoking lens of data! Find us at behindthedatashow.com or wherever you get your podcasts. Find out more about host Andrea Jones-Rooy, Ph.D., at jonesrooy.com or @jonesrooy on Instagram. We will also have a Substack this season (coming soon)!Behind the Data is a podcast that uncovers the hidden stories within the data shaping our world. From political polls to global happiness trackers, we dive into

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41:38

Shark data week!

Behind the Data ·

2025/06/02

If you've ever thought your data was hard to get, wait until you hear about shark data. We are joined by shark scientist Jaida Elcock to discuss how she gets data about sharks, why it's so difficult -- and why it's so important that we do so despite the challenges. Whether you're naturally interested in sharks, care about our planet and oceans, or just want to hear a really brilliant person talk about some truly fascinating datasets and the amazing feats she undertakes to collect them -- then you're

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46:55

The science of self-medication in animals

Behind the Data ·

2025/05/23

When we think about advances in medicine, most of us probably first picture lab coats and fancy equipment -- but as our guest, biologist Jaap de Roode, author of the extraordinary new book Doctors by Nature: How Ants, Apes, and Other Animals Heal Themselves shares, sometimes big discoveries (in medicine and beyond!) can come from looking for data in surprising new places.Join us for a fascinating conversation about how animals in the wild use medicine, such as plants in their environments, why this

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43:41

Searching for life in the Milky Way

Behind the Data ·

2025/04/15

Is there life in our galaxy? How would we know if we spotted it? Dr. Moiya McTier, astrophysicist and folklorist, joins us to talk about her Ph.D. research on exactly that, plus the many surprising ways we get data about our universe (plus some existential pondering, of course)! Warning: we will be talking about the vastness of space and it's *no joke*!If you're overwhelmed by the universe but want to be its friend, be sure to check out Moiya's fantastic podcast Pale Blue Pod! I'm also a guest on an

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47:42

Fear and optimism in the age of AI

Behind the Data ·

2025/04/11

Vasant Dhar has been working on AI since way before it was cool (and before most people thought it was possible). I've admired his work for a long time and since I started this show have wanted to have him on as a guest to talk about the strengths and limitations of LLMs. A few days ago, he published an article in The Hill about how DOGE is using AI wrong, and I knew I had to talk to him immediately.We discuss, indeed, what DOGE is doing wrong, as well as the broader lessons we all can learn from

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30:36

How quantifying political attitudes can help us find...

Behind the Data ·

2025/03/25

We take it as a given that Americans are politically polarized, but how do we actually know if empirically this is the case? We talk with Prof. Patrick Egan (NYU) about how we can quantify something as abstract as a political attitude, why doing so helps us understand polarization, and how all of this helps reveal opportunities where we can make progress on areas where we're most divided -- such as climate change.Explore Pat's research and writing: https://wp.nyu.edu/egan/.Papers and resources

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46:36

Building a data warehouse for ALS

Behind the Data ·

2025/03/18

ALS is a fatal motor neuron disease that has no cure and is estimated to affect hundreds of thousands of people worldwide. Why is a cure, or even a meaningful treatment, so elusive? We talk with data engineer, scientist, and rare disease advocate Danielle Boyce at ALS TDI about her work helping us all better understand this terrible illness. While the topic is grim, Danielle provides a lot of hope -- as well as inspiration to all of us to get involved in solving problems through data.Follow Danielle

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42:21

Spying on Elon Musk from space (and other adventures...

Behind the Data ·

2025/03/11

Oceans of numbers come pouring out at us each day about the big tech companies -- whether it's spending on AI, iPhone sales, Tesla stocks ... or, lawsuits against SpaceX by Cards Against Humanity? -- senior tech correspondent Rani Molla is on the case. We talk with her about how to make sense of all the numbers coming our way, the power of zooming out and getting the (literal and figurative!) big picture, and why her comparative literature degree has been a surprisingly huge asset in her

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51:31

Social Media and Misinformation

Behind the Data ·

2025/03/04

Social media and misinformation are two topics that are everywhere these days -- whether we're interacting with it, blaming all our social ills on it, or worrying about its role in the future of humanity (and other upbeat questions!) -- we all have ideas about how its affecting us and our world. But, as our guest Prof. Joshua Tucker explains, received wisdom is not the same thing as scientific findings. Join us for a tour de force through how to break down "social media" and "misinformation" into

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0:58

Season 2 trailer

Behind the Data ·

2025/02/25

Welcome to Season 2 of Behind the Data! We're going to explore brand new topics through the powerful lens of data, find common ground on some issues that are really dividing us, and even gaze into the night sky and the deep seas -- join us for an adventure, and then some, and walk away with a brand new way of looking at the world through the shared language of data. This season you can expect episodes on misinformation, political attitudes, happiness, ALS, tech, and more.Behind the Data is hosted by

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54:48

How to Be a Data Scientist about Your Own Life to...

Behind the Data ·

2024/12/09

How do we know what career/path/decision is right for us? How can data science help? In this special season 1 finale, we are joined by Megan Hellerer, career coach to luminaries such as AOC, as well as the author of Directional Living: A Transformational Guide to Fulfillment in Work and Life to discuss why traditional career advice doesn't work, why instead we should treat our daily decisions and behaviors like data to be studied, and how, once we collect that data, to conduct hypothesis tests to

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43:31

The Art and Science of Measuring Democracy

Behind the Data ·

2024/12/02

Is democracy in decline around the world? This is a major question on many of our minds, and luckily for us there are very smart, thoughtful people working on tracking (as well as explaining, understanding, and predicting!) exactly this. We are joined by professor Brigitte Seim, who is a project manager for the Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem) dataset, which is one of the biggest and most elaborate efforts to track democracy around the world to date. We discuss how to think about turning something as

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46:19

What Can We Actually Learn from Election Data?

Behind the Data ·

2024/11/25

Approximately ten billion different narratives about what happened in the recent US presidential election have emerged since said election. But how many of these narratives can be substantiated by data? How can we tell?Political scientist Seth Masket joins us to discuss how to make thoughtful inferences from this data, how and why to be skeptical of evidence-free opinions, and the importance (just like in the last episode!!) of being thoughtful about whether our narratives are based on data or we

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1:09:07

How Doctors Use Your Data (and How AI Can Help)

Behind the Data ·

2024/11/18

Dr. Steven Novella, clinical neurologist and host of The Skeptics' Guide to the Universe podcast joins us to share how he collects and analyzes data when he works with patients (there is so much more going on than I realized!) as well as how AI can hopefully improve the practice of medicine if we get it right. It's a longer episode than usual, but I hope you'll agree it's well worth it. Follow

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39:57

The (Often) False Promise of Personal Fitness Data

Behind the Data ·

2024/11/11

Science journalist and athlete Christie Aschwanden takes us inside the not-so-scientific world of the fitness and health data that's tracked by various apps we probably own and/or are tempted to buy, and she helps us more carefully discern what's actually useful to follow and what we're better off ignoring. Plus -- an existentially (and scientifically!) important discussion about the power of uncertainty (and why it doesn't have to feel bad).Christie's Scientific American podcast is Uncertain. Her

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39:10

How Movies and TV Affect Us

Behind the Data ·

2024/11/04

When we think of data and movies the first (and maybe only) thing that comes to mind for many of us is movie reviews. But there is so much more we can learn about movies and ourselves if we just think outside the box a little bit and apply data and scientific thinking in creative ways. We talk with Walt Hickey, author of the book You Are What You Watch: How TV and Movies Affect Everything, about all kinds of exciting applications of data to track how movies affect us physically and emotionally, the

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37:29

Why We Can't Seem to Agree on Crime Statistics

Behind the Data ·

2024/10/28

Crime data is all over the news these days and, at least in the United States, it seems like you can tell any story you want to about whether crime is going up or down and whose fault it is. How should we be thinking about this data to figure out of what's really going on? We speak with Jeff Asher, crime data analyst and co-founder of JH Datalytics, which recently launched the Real-Time Crime Index, about where crime data comes from, why everyone seems to be disagreeing about it, and how to think

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36:31

Political Polls

Behind the Data ·

2024/10/28

Political polls are in our faces these days whether we want them or not -- especially if you're in the US during election season. We talk with polling expert and database journalist Dhrumil Mehta of Columbia University (formerly Nate Silver's FiveThirtyEight) about how to think about polls. Are they all just noise? Do they tell the future? Something in the middle? Join us to explore where political polls come from, how to evaluate them, and how to make the most of the information they

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