MACON – Mercer University’s Women’s and Gender Studies Program in the College of Liberal Arts will host a presentation by Mona Chalabi, data editor of The Guardian U.S., March 19 in recognition of Women’s History Month.
The event, co-sponsored by QuadWorks LEAD and the College of Liberal Arts Dean’s Office, is free and open to the public and will take place at 6 p.m. in the Presidents Dining Room inside the University Center.
Chalabi’s presentation is titled “Taking the ‘Numb’ Out of Numbers” and will draw from her career as an author, documentarian, and illustrator and animator of data.
“We live in a time when a plethora of data is available to a broad public with access to digital technology. At the same time, there is a concomitant manipulation of and scrutiny of those sources, so it is increasingly crucial that we are able to find and discern reliable sources of information and approach data with a critical eye,” said Dr. Natalie Bourdon, associate professor and chair of women’s and gender studies. “Through her work, Chalabi emphasizes the importance of data, but also how easily it can be used by people with their own specific agendas. Her work is urgent and timely, and we are looking forward to hearing her speak for Women’s History Month at Mercer.”
Chalabi has written and presented TV shows for the BBC, National Geographic, Channel 4 and VICE, and is one-half of the team that created the Emmy-nominated video series “Vagina Dispatches,” which explores the physical, social and sometimes political dynamics that surround women’s bodies.
Before she joined The Guardian U.S., she moved to New York from London to write for Nate Silver’s website FiveThirtyEight, which focuses on opinion poll analysis, politics, economics, and sports blogging, and she had a regular segment on American National Public Radio called “The Number Of The Week.”
Prior to working in journalism, she worked in the nonprofit sector, analyzing large data sets for the Bank of England, Transparency International and the International Organization for Migration.
