Austin Steinhart

About me

I am currently earning a M.S. in Computational Analysis & Public Policy, a joint program by the Harris School of Public Policy and the Department of Computer Science at The University of Chicago. I am a Research Engineer with the Mansueto Institute for Urban Innovation working on topics related to public transpiration, property ownership networks, public finance, and property taxes. I am also a writer and developer at the Chicago Maroon. Last summer, I served as a Data Science Journalism Fellow with the Mansueto Institute's Local Data Journalism Initiative researching bus service across the city of Chicago.

I previously ran youth programming at Changeist and worked on the analytics team at the DNC. Find me on Linkedin or reach out via email at asteinhart3 at gmail.com

You can find my programming portfolio at asteinhart, my resume here, and selected writing and projects below.

Stories

Mapping the University of Chicago’s 135-Year Expansion into Hyde Park and Beyond

Drawing from University archives, campus maps, academic literature, and news clippings, the Maroon charted the University’s contentious property acquisitions from its charter in 1890 to the present. Featured on the front page of Hacker News and r/Chicago.

Interactive story built with MapLibre, JS, HTML + CSS.

CTA says bus service is back to prepandemic levels. A new analysis shows which neighborhoods were slowest to get service back.

Worked on a team to produce the analysis and visualizations used in this story in the Chicago Tribune.

Analysis used Python and web app built with FastAPI.

a graphic of donations by political affiliation

University Faculty Aren’t Neutral When It Comes to Political Donations

While the University has an official stance of institutional neutrality, faculty members lean decidedly Democratic. Won 1st place for Graphic Illustrations from the Illinois Collegiate Press Association.

Data story built with D3.js, Highcharts, and Python.

My.UChicago Vulnerability Could Have Exposed Students’ Class Schedules

Broke a story about a vulnerability that allowed access to current and previous class schedules for any student.

Annotating the Kalven Report

Inspired by an interview with journalist Jamie Kalven, son of Harry Kalven, Jr. of the Kalven Report, the Maroon annotates this oft-cited but little read document.

Interactive story built with with JS, HTML + CSS.

Exploring AI Use In Government

In 2023, the Biden Administration released the first ever Federal AI Use Case Inventory. See how the federal government is using AI.

Interactive story built with D3.

Find a Chicago Early Voting Location

A map of all 56 Early Voting locations in Chicago.

Interactive story built with MapLibre.

Three Years Later, What Have We Learned from the UChicago Common Data Set?

The admission rate continues to drop as campus demographics have shifted.

Data story built with Highcharts.

My Reading Over the Years

A personal exploration of my reading over the last 8 years.

Interactive story built with D3 and R.

A scatterplot of my daily crossword times

My Daily Devotion: The NYT Daily Mini Crossword

A person exploration of my NYT Daily Mini Crossword times.

Data story built with ggplot2.

Web Apps

StopWatch:
Exploring Bus Service in Chicago

Built a web app as part of a research project that analyzed a unique dataset of over 100 million real time bus location in partnership with the Chicago Tribune.

Interactive web page with FastApi, JS, HTML + CSS.

The home page of the web app, showing the first three articles

Content We Love

Great reads, thoughtfully curated by your friends.

Interactive web page built with Flask.

Photography

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