About Me

Short Biography

Anna is a senior data scientist in the Tufts University Data Intensive Studies Center with a secondary appointment in the Department of Mathematics and an appointment in the Fletcher Graduate School for Global Affairs. She earned a PhD in mathematics from Wesleyan University. Her research lies at the intersection of mathematics and the social sciences and it deals with the many ways that we can connect data-driven systems to policy to make a safer, more sustainable, and more equitable world.

Medium Biography

Anna earned her PhD in mathematics from Wesleyan University in 2013. In the same year, she was awarded the AAAS-AMS Mass Media Fellowship and spent 10 weeks working on the science desk at National Public Radio. This experience shaped her understanding of how and why we talk about numbers. Her formal training is in computational number theory. As a number theorist she held the position of visiting scientist at the Max Planck Institute for Mathematics for two semesters and earned tenure and promotion to associate professor of mathematics at Duquense University in 2020. She briefly left academia to work as an industry data scientist and joined Tufts University as a senior data scientist in 2021. Since then Anna's research has moved to the intersection of mathematics and the social sciences and it deals with the many ways that we can connect data-driven systems to policy to make a safer, more sustainable, and more equitable world. Anna is a co-director of the Small Town Police Accountability (SToPA) Research Lab and holds a secondary appointment in the Tufts Department of Mathematics and an appointment in the Fletcher Graduate School for Global Affairs. She has been awarded numerous grants for her work, most recently from the NSF for a project that combines elements of human behavior, public policy, and civil engineering to improve offshore wind infrastructure.

Long Biography

Anna is a senior data scientist in the Tufts University Data Intensive Studies Center with a secondary appointment in the Department of Mathematics and the Fletcher Graduate School for Global Affairs. She earned her Ph.D. in mathematics from Wesleyan University in 2013, after which she was a visiting scientist at the Max Planck Institute for Mathematics. The roots of her research are in computational number theory, specifically in using modern computational tools and capabilities to answer longstanding, previously intractable, open problems. Until 2021, she was on the faculty of the Duquesne University Department of Mathematics & Computer Science, where she was granted tenure and promotion to associate professor in 2020.

On a brief leave from academia, she spent 15 months working as a research data scientist at a start-up in the Boston area called Tagup. In this position, her interest in algorithmic development led her to explore tools in data science and machine learning. Specifically, the ways we can use these tools to make a safer and more equitable world, from understanding and mitigating the impacts of climate change to resource allocation on a local and global scale. In this position, Anna began to consider the ways that machine learning can be applied to the domain of offshore wind to optimize the life of wind turbines and the safety of turbine operators.

Since joining Tufts she's developed several transdisciplinary collaborations. She works closely with the Tufts Univeristy Art Gallery to apply the princples of data science to develop tools in improve equity in public art. She continues her work on turbines with faculty in enginneering, policy, and public health, and is Co-PI on an NSF grant to develop policy-aware digital twins of offshore wind turbines. She also does work related to the connection between public opinion and public policy and is especially interested in policing.

In 2013 she was awarded the AAAS-AMS Mass Media Fellowship during which she spent 10 weeks working on the Science Desk at National Public Radio. In addition to the technical applications of data science, she's interested in the ways that data and numerical literacy more generally shape the way we produce and consume media. Consequently, she is committed to practicing data science in a way that connects the technical to the social.

In her free time she likes to make art.

How to Pronounce My Name

Since it's caused confusion in the past, I should say that my name, Anna Haensch, rhymes with "sauna bench." At the risk of causing confusion in the future too, I'll add that it's German in origin -- just like me! -- and my surname can also be spelled Hänsch.

Contact

Email: anna.haensch at tufts dot edu
Office: 338D Joyce Cumming Center, 177 College Ave, Medford, MA 02155
Twitter: @extremefriday
Github: @annahaensch
Pronouns: she/her