Our Team
As an organization, the Lab operates on multiple scales. We have a core group for ongoing Lab activities and a larger group of contributors and collaborators working with us on various projects.
Core Team
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Moon Duchin (mduchin@mggg.org) founded MGGG at Tufts University in 2016 to focus mathematical attention on redistricting. Her areas of mathematical expertise are in geometry, topology, and dynamical systems. At the University of Chicago, she is a professor of data science and computer science.
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Ge Fang (he/him) is a research software engineer at the lab. He studied theoretical computer science (Tsinghua University, BA) and philosophy (Stanford University, MA; WashU, PhD), and has worked in Google’s search team. He is interested in the ontology of social sciences, and believes philosophy of social science should be continuous with the practice of social sciences.
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Grace Gibson is a research software engineer at the Data Science Institute at the University of Chicago. She splits her time between this lab and the core facility team. She has a Masters in Computer Science from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and a BS in Biocomputing from Marquette University. In her free time, she enjoys playing volleyball and drawing.
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Dylan Halpern works as a software engineer at the Data Science Institute at the University of Chicago and collaborates with MGGG as a core developer on Districtr. His background is in Urban Planning and Civic Technology (Master in City Planning, MIT) and visual communication (BFA, VCU), and his research interests are urban and regional analytics, democratized and low-cost civic technologies, and geospatial data viz.
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Hane Lee (hane@mggg.org) is a postdoc in the lab. They received their PhD from Columbia University, where they studied statistical methods for political science. Hane’s research interests lie in the intersection of race, politics, and quantitative methodology.
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Maria Milosh Maria is a predoc at the lab. She received a Ms in Computational Analysis for Public Policy at UChicago. Previously she worked as a data scientist at the World Bank and for the New York City. Maria is interested in computational social choice and civic technology.
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Raina Okonogi-Neth (she/her) is a math PhD student at Cornell University. She is interested in the mathematics of redistricting, Markov chains, and math and science communication. In her spare time, she enjoys participating in mathematical outreach, cooking, and watching movies.
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Peter Rock (peter@mggg.org) graduated from the University of Colorado Boulder where he studied discrete differential geometry, at the intersection of computer science and differential geometry. Currently, he works for the lab as a research scientist, and is interested in computational geometry, graph algorithms, and applications to redistricting. Peter manages research code for the lab.
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Elliot Sher (he/him) recently graduated from the University of Chicago, where he studied sociology and law with research grounded in digital humanities. His interests lie in corruption and transnational financial flows, with a focus on computational methods. He works primarily with leaked archives, combining close reading with text analysis at scale.
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Sam Stephenson is a predoc at the lab. He received bachelor’s degrees in history and mathematics and a master’s degree in social science from the University of Chicago. His research interests focus on applying computational social science to the study of history and the economic geography of 19th century US expansion in particular. In his free time he enjoys reading, playing chess poorly, and watching movies.
Summer Fellows 2026
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Gabriel Aksakal Gabriel Aksakal is a fourth-year undergraduate at Boston College studying math and philosophy. He is interested in combinatorics and graph theory. Outside of math, he loves to hike, run, and hang out with his dog.
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Elias Boshara (he/him) is a Ph.D. candidate in Applied Math at UChicago. He is developing statistical frameworks for analyzing the behavior of spatial voting rules. He enjoys tending to his plants and spending time in the sunshine.
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Marcy Castro Lívano (she/her) is a research assistant at the Data and Democracy Lab. She is currently pursuing a master’s degree in Computational Analysis and Public Policy at the University of Chicago and holds a bachelor’s in Economics from the Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú. Her interests sit at the intersection of data science, public policy, and civic technology, with a particular interest in how computational tools can strengthen democratic institutions and public decision-making. When not at the lab, Marcy loves exploring Chicago, swimming in the lake, and spending time with her cocker spaniel, Merlí.
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Jon Greer Jon Greer is a first-year Data Science PhD student at the University of Chicago. He is interested in Markov chain methods and convergence diagnostics for redistricting.
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Sebastian Lemberger is a rising second year at the University of Chicago studying mathematics and philosophy. He is interested in topology and combinatorics, particularly when it is possible to apply them to things. In his free time, he enjoys reading science fiction.
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Alexandra Marcos Quispe (she/her) is an intern at the lab for Summer 2026. She is pursuing a master’s in Computational Analysis for Public Policy at the University of Chicago, building on a bachelor’s in Economics from Lima, Peru. Her work brings together economic theory, unstructured data, and forecasting — from linear algebra to machine learning — to diagnose problems and turn insights into actionable tools for government. Outside of her research, she enjoys learning new recipes, writing, and fitness boxing.
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Matthew Rossi is a first-year Data Science PhD student at the University of Chicago with research interests in computational social choice theory and equivariant machine learning. When not writing code or doing math, he enjoys playing the piano and indulging his obsession with rock climbing.
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Brock Sauvage (he/him) is a research assistant at the lab. He is currently a masters student in Computational Analysis for Public Policy at the University of Chicago, having also obtained a bachelors in Interdisciplinary Computing at the University of Kansas. He is interested in civic technology and the application of digital tools for community building. In his free time Brock enjoys biking alongside Lake Michigan, playing guitar, and writing Dungeons & Dragons campaigns for friends.
Key Collaborators, Past and Present
