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Amen Ra Mashariki shares his experience as the Chief Analytics Officer of New York City working with NYU CUSP graduate students on GovLoop.

The other day I was reading an article from Wired that a colleague shared with me. It was entitled: “Cities Are Watching You – Urban Science Graduates Watch Back.” The attention-grabbing title notwithstanding (more on that a little later) was a very appropriate and interesting article.

The article discussed the rise of the “Urban Science” degree, and how M.I.T. and other prominent universities are investing in building programs that “combines data analytics training with the sort of informed policy know-how offered in typical Urban Studies programs.”

While this degree may be a relatively new phenomenon, programs like this have been around and flourishing. In my experience, these sorts of programs can come in all different shapes and sizes, and even have varying intent in terms of their mission and goals. But, one thing that the article points out, and is crucial for urban science programs to be useful and ultimately successful, is a strong relationship with a partner city. In this blog, I am going to share my experience as the Chief Analytics Officer of New York City with New York University’s (NYU) Urban Science program called the Center for Urban Science and Progress (CUSP).