JN Matthews

they/them/theirs
jnmatthews@uchicago.edu

I am a PhD student in Computer Science at the University of Chicago, advised by Aloni Cohen.

My research interests are at the intersection of theoretical computer science, social justice, law and public policy. Recently I’ve been thinking about graphs and networks, optimization methods, and differential privacy in the context of the Census, Voting Rights, and Redistricting. I’m also passionate about education/outreach in mathematics and civics.

Prior to my graduate studies, I worked as a computational engineer at the MGGG Redistricting Lab, where I worked on a mixture of academic research projects, software development, and analysis for VRA cases. I graduated from Tufts University in 2019, where I studied computer science and math.

Outside of academics, I am an avid fan of D&D (and other TTRPGs), baking, houseplants, and cats. I also enjoy hiking and cycling.

news

Sep 20, 2022 Joined the Department of Computer Science @UChicago as a PhD student in computer science.
Jun 9, 2021 Co-Presented our paper “Census TopDown: Investigating the Impacts of Differential Privacy on Redistricting” at the Symposium on Foundations of Responsible Computing (FORC) 2021.
Recordings: [20-minute talk], [5-minute talk].
Sep 26, 2020 Gave an interactive talk on “Fighting Gerrymandering with Math!” for the North Carolina Network of Math Teachers’ Circles.
Aug 21, 2019 Joined the MGGG Redistricting Lab as a Computational Engineer.

selected publications

  1. A teaser graphic for the COI Analysis paper.
    Aggregating Community Maps
    Erin Chambers, Moon Duchin, Ranthony A.C. Edmonds, Parker Edwards, JN Matthews, Anthony E. Pizzimenti, Chanel Richardson, Parker Rule, and Ari Stern
    In The 30th International Conference on Advances in Geographic Information Systems (SIGSPATIAL ’22), Nov 2022
  2. Private Numbers in Public Policy: Census, Differential Privacy, and Redistricting
    Harvard Data Science Review, Jun 2022
  3. A teaser graphic for the Census TopDown paper.
    Census TopDown: The Impacts of Differential Privacy on Redistricting
    In 2nd Symposium on Foundations of Responsible Computing (FORC 2021), May 2021
  4. A teaser graphic for the Short Bursts paper.
    Voting Rights, Markov Chains, and Optimization by Short Bursts
    Sarah Cannon, Ari Goldbloom-Helzner, Varun Gupta, JN Matthews, and Bhushan Suwal
    Methodology and Computing in Applied Probability, Feb 2023