Katie Spoon

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Pronouns: she/her
Contact: katherine.spoon@colorado.edu
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About Me

In Fall 2025, I start as a Data Science Fellow and New Map of Life Postdoc Fellow at Stanford, working with Mitchell Stevens and David Rehkopf. I received my PhD in computer science at the University of Colorado Boulder, supported by an NSF Graduate Research Fellowship, advised by Aaron Clauset and Dan Larremore. During my PhD, I also received a Master’s in Education Policy, and spent time working as a Data Science Fellow at the U.S. Census Bureau and a Graduate Research Assistant in the National Center for Women & Technology.

My research systematically investigates social inequalities in education, careers and health at scale to better inform policy decisions that address those inequalities. I enjoy using a diverse range of data science and social science methods to conduct large-scale, interdisciplinary administrative, survey, network, and text analyses, which often reveal patterns not visible at a smaller scale.

Prior to my PhD, I worked as a research engineer at IBM Research, and studied computer science at Indiana University, where I developed an early-warning system to detect dyslexia in children’s handwriting.

News

SUMMER 2025 ∙ Taking a break from work to hike the Colorado Trail! 🌲🥾⛺

SPRING 2025 ∙ Finished my PhD! 🎓 And gave talks [slides, slides] at the Atlanta Conference on Science and Innovation Policy.

FALL 2024 ∙ Honored to give talks at the Rising Stars in Data Science Workshop and the University of Colorado Academic Leadership Conference. New op-ed for The Conversation. Started working with the National Center for Women & Technology.

SUMMER 2024 ∙ Started as a Data Science Fellow at the U.S. Census Bureau. Talks at the International Conference on the Science of Science & Innovation and the Coding it Forward Public Technology Showcase. New paper in PNAS Nexus!

SPRING 2024 ∙ Talks [slides] at the Academic Analytics Research Center and CU Office of Faculty Affairs. Honored to have recieved an Achievement Reward for College Scientists and an Annual Outstanding Paper Award from CU Boulder. I enjoyed participaing in the Atlanta Academy on Science and Innovation Policy. New preprint!

FALL 2023 ∙ New paper in Science Advances! Covered by The Chronicle of Higher Education, Times Higher Education, Science Careers and Nature News. Featured as an exemplary paper in social and interdisciplinary sciences by Science Advances. And a new preprint- such a fun collaboration started at a summer school! Passed my dissertation proposal defense and I am officially a PhD candidate! 🎉

SUMMER 2023 ∙ Talks [slides] at the International Conference on Computational Social Science and the Atlanta Conference on Science and Innovation Policy [slides]. New preprint!

SUMMER 2022 ∙ Gave talks at the International Conference on Computational Social Science, the Women in Network Science and Diversify NetSci Satellite, and the International Conference on Science of Science and Innovation, and I enjoyed participating in the Summer Institute in Computational Social Science