Advancing the field of digital and computational demography

Professor Ridhi Kashyap’s research leverages computational approaches for demographic research within the growing area of Digital and Computational Demography, co-leading the Leverhulme Centre for Demographic Science (LCDS) strand on Digital and Computational Science. The research encompasses how computational methods (e.g. agent-based models, microsimulation, machine learning) and new data streams (e.g. digital trace data from the web and social media), can contribute to the study of population dynamics and social inequalities. Along with colleagues at LCDS, Professor Kashyap has contributed two book chapters; ‘Digital and computational demography’ in the Research Handbook on Digital Sociology; and ‘Leveraging digital and computational demography for policy insights’ in the Handbook of Computational Social Science for Policy.

Professor Kashyap is also PI of the Digital Gender Gaps project which uses social media data together with survey data to nowcast global digital gender inequalities in internet and mobile access, a global sustainable development goal (SDG) indicator for which there is a significant data gap.

In January 2023, Professor Kashyap was an invited speaker at the ESRC Digital Footprints Strategic Advice Team launch, which brought together academic researchers, industry experts and members of government to discuss the ESRC’s major investment in strengthening and growing capacity, infrastructure and impactful research in the area of Digital Footprints data, while Professor Melinda Mills was an invited member to the No.10 Prime Minister’s Office Data Science Advisory Group from 2021-2023.

In recognition of her work on demography, social statistics, computational social science, digital and computational demography, and gender inequalities, Professor Kashyap won the 2023 Philip Leverhulme Prize.

Further reading

Digital and computational demography (Research Handbook on Digital Sociology)

Leveraging digital and computational demography for policy insights (Handbook of Computational Social Science for Policy)

Digital Gender Gaps Web Application (Zenodo, Github)