The Barcelona Supercomputing Center (BSC) has recently started a new program on Computational Social Sciences that aims to create and provide support to new projects that combine research in the social sciences with the analysis of large amounts of data or artificial intelligence that usually would require high-performance computing. This talk will present the new program and its objectives.

Mercè Crosas is a researcher at the Barcelona Supercomputing Center (BSC) expert in data science, data management, and open data and FAIR data (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable). From early 2023, Crosas is the Head of Computational Social Sciences Program at the BSC, a new program that aims to facilitate the use of data and computing in social science and humanities research, and to create and support computational studies in these areas.

Before this position, Crosas was the Secretary of Open Government at the Generalitat de Catalunya from 2021 to 2022, a high-ranked government position responsible for open data, transparency, and citizen participation. Most of her professional career has been spent at Harvard University, eventually as Chief Data Science and Technology Officer at the Institute for Quantitative Social Sciences and University Research Data Management Officer. She has also worked in the development of data systems in biotechnology^ companies and has conducted research and built scientific software in astrophysics at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. Crosas holds a doctorate in Astrophysics from Rice University and a degree in Physics from the University of Barcelona.