A social science statistician aims to help nonprofits track outcomes and impact.
As a program analyst for Good Shepherd Services, Lauren Magee (MA ’23) enjoyed her work generating reports and data tracking the nonprofit’s various offerings for NYC families. But she was eager to go a step further and engage in deeper analysis of the impact of specific programs, such as those for people facing homelessness or fleeing domestic violence. Lauren wondered if, with the right training, she could learn to “look into causal types of relationships between receiving services or having certain needs met that ultimately lead to positive outcomes.”
Lauren Magee
Among other graduate programs she considered in pursuit of that goal, Steinhardt’s Master of Science in Applied Statistics for Social Science Research stood out because it offered course work that allowed her to explore the intersections of statistics and social justice. She enrolled.
“While at NYU Steinhardt, I was able to study abroad and take an applied psychology class on cross-cultural counseling,” says Lauren, who completed her degree this spring. “[Steinhardt] fosters those kinds of conversations where you can go outside of your field, while finding ways to connect to what you're studying.”
For the 2023 spring break, Lauren traveled with her cross-cultural counseling class to Berlin, where she interviewed professionals with varied religious backgrounds, races, and gender and sexual identities to learn about gathering qualitative data from diverse audiences.
Throughout her time in the Applied Statistics, Social Science, and Humanities Department, she immersed herself in the field, joining the Society for Statistics Students as an event coordinator and serving as the club’s president for 2022-2023. Under her leadership, the club increased the frequency of events it offered, with members convening weekly for professional development or social gatherings.
She also had the opportunity to deploy the kind of outcome-focused analysis that drew her to the program through her internship requirement that allowed her to implement a satisfaction survey at Good Shepherd Services.
“It was about how our services were impacting participants in certain areas and if they felt like our services were really doing what we intend for them to do,” Lauren said. “I added demographic data, specifically looking at whether race or gender or sexual orientation were impacting the experience of our participants.”
As a new graduate, Lauren is continuing her work with Good Shepherd Services as a consultant, and spending her summer working with NYU’s Office of Global Programs, assisting NYU Abu Dhabi and NYU Shanghai students visiting NYU New York.
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