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Thursday, October 15
 

8:30am EDT

Registration & Continental Breakfast
Thursday October 15, 2026 8:30am - 8:50am EDT
Registration and Continental  breakfast
Thursday October 15, 2026 8:30am - 8:50am EDT
Auditorium (Basement) 525 Superior Ave, Cleveland, OH 44114, USA

8:50am EDT

Welcome and Logistics
Thursday October 15, 2026 8:50am - 9:00am EDT
Welcome and event logistics from event planning co-chairs Will Skora and April Urban.
Thursday October 15, 2026 8:50am - 9:00am EDT
Auditorium (Basement) 525 Superior Ave, Cleveland, OH 44114, USA

9:00am EDT

Morning Plenary
Thursday October 15, 2026 9:00am - 9:50am EDT

Thursday October 15, 2026 9:00am - 9:50am EDT
Auditorium (Basement) 525 Superior Ave, Cleveland, OH 44114, USA

10:00am EDT

How We Live: The intersection of information and community
Thursday October 15, 2026 10:00am - 10:50am EDT
My session will share common data collection habits of local organizations and suggest an improvement that could lead to higher community participation and resident satisfaction.  The two primary data resources for community development corporations (CDCs) tend to be census-based or through community surveys with direct questions.  I will share an alternative information-gathering...
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Speakers
CA

Carrie Ann Campbell

N/A
I am currently a graduate student at CSU working on my Master of Urban Planning and Development.  During my time at CSU, community engagement has become my passion and my curiosity about community involvement in local decision-making has become my primary interest.  I believe that... Read More →
Thursday October 15, 2026 10:00am - 10:50am EDT
Legacy Room (1st Floor) 525 Superior Ave, Cleveland, OH 44114, USA

10:00am EDT

From Data to Story: Designing Visualizations That Drive Understanding
Thursday October 15, 2026 10:00am - 10:50am EDT
Data alone rarely changes minds. Stories do. In this session, participants will learn how visualization transforms data into understanding by directing attention to meaningful insights. Through examples and practical guidance, we'll explore visual perception, effective chart design, common pitfalls, and storytelling techniques that help audiences quickly grasp and act on the information that...
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Speakers
ZM

Zachary Morgan

Director, Institutional Research + Effectiveness
Zachary Morgan is a leader in institutional research and analytics, dedicated to advancing data-informed decision-making and institutional effectiveness in higher education. He has led strategic planning, accreditation, enrollment management, and student success initiatives, driving... Read More →
Thursday October 15, 2026 10:00am - 10:50am EDT
Auditorium (Basement) 525 Superior Ave, Cleveland, OH 44114, USA

10:00am EDT

Property Insights - A Deep Dive
Thursday October 15, 2026 10:00am - 10:50am EDT
Property Insights is a dataset and application that contains over 200 attributes ranging across a variety of topics such as building & housing, city planning, public health, fiscal status, and much more! In this presentation I will overview how the Property Insights sausage is made. I'll talk about the data engineering and analytical techniques we used to produce the dataset, alongside a...
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Speakers
avatar for Samuel Martinez

Samuel Martinez

Spatial Data Analyst, City of Cleveland
I'm a Spatial Data Analyst at the City of Cleveland's department of Urban Analytics and Innovation. I do a lot of data analysis, cleaning, and automation with tools like Python, SQL, and databricks. I specialize in spatial data, so I also use a lot of GIS and geospatial processing... Read More →
Thursday October 15, 2026 10:00am - 10:50am EDT
Conference Room B (2nd Floor) 525 Superior Ave, Cleveland, OH 44114, USA

10:00am EDT

The Data Warehouse You Can Build on Your Laptop
Thursday October 15, 2026 10:00am - 10:50am EDT
Your organization runs on data — it's how you know what's working and how you make the case to sustain and grow your programs. But most teams hit a wall after a spreadsheet or two: sources multiply, staying current becomes a chore, and trusting the numbers gets harder just as complexity increases.The good news: you don't need a big budget or an IT department to fix this. Using free and...
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Speakers
DP

David Pickering

Personal
David is an analyst turned analytics engineer who spent over a decade in the non-profit sector, building analytics teams from the ground up. He specializes in modern data tooling — Snowflake, Python, DuckDB — with a mild dbt obsession and a particular love of geospatial analytics... Read More →
Thursday October 15, 2026 10:00am - 10:50am EDT
Conference Room C (2nd Floor)

11:00am EDT

Lightning Session 1: Rolling the Dice: Consecutive and Concurrent Sentencing in Cuyahoga County
Thursday October 15, 2026 11:00am - 11:10am EDT
A judge's choice between consecutive and concurrent sentences can add years to a defendant's incarceration. Using Cuyahoga County sentencing data, I look at how frequently judges make that choice and how much their behavior varies. Even after restricting the analysis to very similar cases, some judges impose consecutive sentences dramatically more often than others. This lightning talk shows how a...
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Speakers
avatar for Brian Mikelbank

Brian Mikelbank

Associate Professor, Cleveland State University
Brian Mikelbank is a faculty member at Cleveland State University and a Visiting Scholar at the Legal Aid Society of Cleveland. A quantitative urban geographer by training, he uses data analysis to study patterns and processes shaping cities and metropolitan regions. His research... Read More →
Thursday October 15, 2026 11:00am - 11:10am EDT
Legacy Room (1st Floor) 525 Superior Ave, Cleveland, OH 44114, USA

11:00am EDT

Innovation in the Public Sector: Lessons Learned and Discussion
Thursday October 15, 2026 11:00am - 11:50am EDT
Most of the time at Data Days we discuss and describe problems in services of moving towards a solution. But what does it take to do make a big change or do something new in the public sector?  Some institutions have theories and practical guides to making innovation (making a big change or doing something new) happen. Learn about one formula for innovation and share with those in the room...
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Speakers
SC

Shannon Copfer Brace

Civic Designer
Shannon to add later.
AU

April Urban

Co-founder
April Urban is the co-founder of Data Days CLE and co-planning lead for the conference. She currently works as the project manager for the Bloomberg Innovation Team at the City of Cleveland.
Thursday October 15, 2026 11:00am - 11:50am EDT
Conference Room B (2nd Floor) 525 Superior Ave, Cleveland, OH 44114, USA

11:00am EDT

Mapping the Margins: Helping Identify Democratic Shortfalls Using Systems Science
Thursday October 15, 2026 11:00am - 11:50am EDT
This interactive workshop will guide participants through the process of identifying current shortfalls in policy within the current political landscape of the United States. Through a series of guided short systems science activities, participants will gain insights on emergent challenges facing governmental systems by understanding how mental models align with expectations of democracy....
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Speakers
KT

Kyle Thompson

Policy Associate, The Center for Community Solutions
Kyle Thompson is a policy associate at the Center for Community Solutions. He drives forward research on statewide issues related to health and economic wellbeing. His expertise lies in behavioral health services, and the broader social service safety net. He is invited regularly... Read More →
Thursday October 15, 2026 11:00am - 11:50am EDT
Conference Room C (2nd Floor)

11:00am EDT

From Youth Voice to Measurable Impact
Thursday October 15, 2026 11:00am - 11:50am EDT
How can authentic youth voice become meaningful impact data? Discover how Youth Opportunities Unlimited built an organization-wide impact framework and brought it to life through pre- and post-program video reflections. Explore our process for developing rubrics, analyzing growth in career readiness, confidence, and self-reflection, and turning youth stories into actionable insights - without...
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Speakers
MF

Molly Feghali

Director of Training, Learning & Impact
Dr. Molly Feghali serves as the Director of Training, Learning & Impact at Youth Opportunities Unlimited (Y.O.U.), where she leads the organization's career-connected learning strategy, curriculum development, and impact measurement. She oversees a team of facilitators delivering... Read More →
HL

Hayat Lachheb

Career Readiness Facilitator
Hayat Lachheb is a Career Readiness Facilitator with the Planning and Career Readiness (PACE) team at Youth Opportunities Unlimited (Y.O.U). She is dedicated to helping connect high school students to meaningful career pathways through structured lessons, career advising, and work-based... Read More →
EW

Elizabeth Wilden

Learning & Impact Specialist
Elizabeth Wilden is a Learning & Impact Specialist at Youth Opportunities Unlimited (Y.O.U.), where she transforms program data into meaningful insights that support decision-making and demonstrate impact. Her work focuses on evaluation, data analysis, reporting, and dashboard development... Read More →
Thursday October 15, 2026 11:00am - 11:50am EDT
Auditorium (Basement) 525 Superior Ave, Cleveland, OH 44114, USA

11:10am EDT

Lightning Session 1: Before You Trust the Number: Five Questions Every Citizen Should Ask About Civic Data
Thursday October 15, 2026 11:10am - 11:20am EDT
Civic data can inform better decisions—but only if we know how to question it. This lightning talk gives everyday citizens five simple questions to ask before accepting a number at face value: who collected it, who is missing, what is being measured, compared with what, and how presentation shapes interpretation. Attendees will leave with a practical framework for reading civic data with...
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Speakers
JR

Jacquelineo Ruiz

Jacqueline Ruiz is a historian, educator, and researcher based in Cleveland. Her work has focused on making complex information understandable and helping people engage more confidently with history, institutions, and public life. She holds a master’s degree in U.S. History and... Read More →
Thursday October 15, 2026 11:10am - 11:20am EDT

11:20am EDT

Lightning Session 1: Planning Public Land One Vote, One Parcel at a Time
Thursday October 15, 2026 11:20am - 11:30am EDT
Cleveland holds more public land than at any point in its history. Planning at the city or neighborhood scale dilutes local knowledge into general recommendations that need further planning to implement. This session covers current engagement shortfalls, the City's Groundtruthing pilot, and a live demonstration of a prototype where stakeholders vote parcel by parcel to create land use...
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Speakers
TD

Tim Dehm

Planning and Design Specialist, Western Reserve Land Conservancy
Tim Dehm is a Planning and Design Specialist at Western Reserve Land Conservancy, where he uses his background in landscape architecture and city planning to develop planning frameworks to  guide site selection, conducts parcel-level assessment, and leads landscape design, implementation... Read More →
Thursday October 15, 2026 11:20am - 11:30am EDT
Legacy Room (1st Floor) 525 Superior Ave, Cleveland, OH 44114, USA

12:00pm EDT

Lunch and Unconference
Thursday October 15, 2026 12:00pm - 1:10pm EDT
Data Days CLE hosts an "unconference."  Conference attendees can host conversations about what's important to them. Anyone can host a conversation! Conversations are organized around questions, and are meant to be participatory, not lecture or sales-pitch time. Use the virtual conference board to propose a conversation question. If you see a question you're really interested in, add a dot to...
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Thursday October 15, 2026 12:00pm - 1:10pm EDT
Auditorium (Basement) 525 Superior Ave, Cleveland, OH 44114, USA

1:20pm EDT

Keynote (Noel Hidalgo, BetaNYC)
Thursday October 15, 2026 1:20pm - 2:20pm EDT

Thursday October 15, 2026 1:20pm - 2:20pm EDT
Auditorium (Basement) 525 Superior Ave, Cleveland, OH 44114, USA

2:30pm EDT

Lightning Session 2: Visualizing the Universe on the Wall
Thursday October 15, 2026 2:30pm - 2:40pm EDT
A new exhibit at the Cleveland Museum of Natural History required the scale of the universe to be visualized on a wall illustration – from the scale of galaxies, to the scale of the Earth. This talk discusses the strategy I used to relate this scale information in a single image.
Speakers
PH

Peter Hedman

Data Visualization Analyst
Peter Hedman has worked at the Cleveland Museum of Natural History since 2018, where his work spans data engineering, analytics, and IT infrastructure. He began by creating and presenting planetarium shows and is now building a new ETL system to enable easier and better reporting... Read More →
Thursday October 15, 2026 2:30pm - 2:40pm EDT
Legacy Room (1st Floor) 525 Superior Ave, Cleveland, OH 44114, USA

2:30pm EDT

Building community capacity to address brain health through increased access to local data
Thursday October 15, 2026 2:30pm - 3:20pm EDT
The Cuyahoga County Board of Health will share steps taken to increase organizational and community partner capacity to understand and advance the brain health of Cuyahoga County residents. Learn how the agency developed internal expertise, identified community needs and strengths, and increased access to local data on brain health through the development of various data products including a...
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Speakers
SS

Sarah Szabo

Data Analyst, Cuyahoga County Board of Health
Sarah Szabo, MSSA, is a data analyst with the Cuyahoga County Board of Health (CCBH) based in Parma, Ohio. During her seven years in this role, she has been heavily involved in primary and secondary data analyses, as well as assisting with collaborative community health improvement... Read More →
Thursday October 15, 2026 2:30pm - 3:20pm EDT
Conference Room C (2nd Floor)

2:30pm EDT

Visualizing Development Data in Three Dimensions: How Leveraging Cross-Sector Partnerships Can Help a Powerful Tool to Evolve
Thursday October 15, 2026 2:30pm - 3:20pm EDT
The Cleveland Development Model is a living, collaborative, civic data platform that combines geographic information systems (GIS), 3D modeling, urban planning, and economic development data into a single system. Originally developed by City Architecture in collaboration with Greater Cleveland Partnership, this fully interactive online tool was created to illustrate the investments taking place...
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Speakers
MH

Michael Hawkins

Professor of Geography
As a research data librarian, Michael's role is in supporting researchers throughout the data lifecycle. His responsibilities include providing training and consultation on research data management best practices, developing data services, and providing data literacy workshops and... Read More →
AL

Allison Lukacsy-Love

Director
Allison Lukacsy-Love, AIA, AICP, is a licensed architect and certified city planner dedicated to equitable redevelopment of the built environment. Before her appointment with the Cleveland Urban Design Collaborative, she was the Managing Director of Major Projects at the Greater Cleveland... Read More →
KP

Krysta Pesarchick

Senior City Planner
Krysta is an urban designer and city planner who has been involved with a wide variety of architecture and planning projects of varying sizes. She rises to the challenge of looking at every project from different scales to develop creative design solutions. Her communication, organization... Read More →
Thursday October 15, 2026 2:30pm - 3:20pm EDT
Auditorium (Basement) 525 Superior Ave, Cleveland, OH 44114, USA

2:30pm EDT

Beyond OCR: Turning Historical Cemetery Records into Trustworthy Data
Thursday October 15, 2026 2:30pm - 3:20pm EDT
Historical cemetery records are rich in local history but difficult to use as data. This session follows the development of a local, open-source pipeline that combines image enhancement, OCR, vision-language models, and human review to turn scanned forms with handwriting, changing layouts, and imperfect text into structured, searchable records while preserving uncertainty and provenance.
Speakers
TD

Timothy Dobransky

Born and raised in Cleveland, I am an IT professional with over two decades of experience working for local and global organizations across multiple disciplines including engineering, architecture, consulting and leadership. I am passionate about how we can use technology, innovation... Read More →
Thursday October 15, 2026 2:30pm - 3:20pm EDT
Conference Room B (2nd Floor) 525 Superior Ave, Cleveland, OH 44114, USA

2:40pm EDT

Lightning Session 2: How do we capture our collective stories, can AI help?
Thursday October 15, 2026 2:40pm - 2:50pm EDT
Data is less powerful without the stories that connect it and connect us. For most, our family stories sit in old photo libraries or in the histories passed down by family members. Traditional archivists were reserved for the very famous, or wealthy (or both). What if we used digital archivists to collect and store stories across all of our communities. How might we co-create and build on a...
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Speakers
ML

Matthew Lehman

Digital enthusiast, past Chief Digital Officer at Westfield, Currently leading fin serv team for RingCentral and owner of FootballNews365, a news and information app company built for soccer fans worldwide. 
Thursday October 15, 2026 2:40pm - 2:50pm EDT

2:50pm EDT

Lightning Session 2: The Data Made Us Do It: How Sound Insights Turned Nonprofit Data into Action
Thursday October 15, 2026 2:50pm - 3:00pm EDT
What good is data if it doesn't tell you anything? Cleveland Hearing & Speech Center had plenty of data and no insight, until we built Sound Insights: near real-time visibility for faster decisions and earlier insight than financial statements allow. One example: data showed our clients weren't coming from underserved neighborhoods, so we moved our office there instead. Come hear how we built a...
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Speakers
JV

Jennell Vick

President & CEO
Dr. Jennell Vick is President & CEO of the Cleveland Hearing & Speech Center, where she is leading the integration of data, technology, and clinical care to improve outcomes for individuals with communication disorders. A scientist by training, she has held research appointments at MIT, the University... Read More →
Thursday October 15, 2026 2:50pm - 3:00pm EDT
Legacy Room (1st Floor) 525 Superior Ave, Cleveland, OH 44114, USA

3:00pm EDT

Lightning Session 2: Cleveland Lead Data Public Health Data
Thursday October 15, 2026 3:00pm - 3:10pm EDT
This session dives into the blood lead screening and testing data that informs the lead poisoning prevention efforts in Cleveland. The sessions provides context on the systems currently in place within Cleveland, summarizing the different roles the City of Cleveland and community partners have in responding to and preventing lead poisoning. We then discuss the lead screening and testing data and...
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Speakers
CM

Claudia Meister

Lead Program Manager
Claudia Meister
VT

Vinh Trinh

Epidemiologist, City of Cleveland
Vinh Trình has been an Epidemiologist with Cleveland Department of Public Health for 6 years, focusing on lead poisoning and sexually transmitted infections. He received his Bachelor of Science degree in Biology from John Carroll University and his Master of Public Health degree... Read More →
Thursday October 15, 2026 3:00pm - 3:10pm EDT
Legacy Room (1st Floor) 525 Superior Ave, Cleveland, OH 44114, USA

3:30pm EDT

Agile in the Rustbelt: Breaking the Cycle of Poverty in One Midwestern Community
Thursday October 15, 2026 3:30pm - 4:20pm EDT
Agile isn't just for software development teams; It works in the public sector, too. In this session, you'll learn how the executive directors of six non-profit and public service organizations, guided by a seasoned agile coach, approached the complex issue of poverty in their community. We'll discuss how, over the course of a year, the group worked to identify an objective, set a clear measurable...
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Speakers
ND

Nicole Derr

Community Changemaker | Strategic Business Advisor
Nicole Derr is an agile (tech) coach turned community changemaker. She partners with leaders to build resilient, long-lasting organizations that contribute positively to their communities. Together they grow companies through innovative products and scalable, cooperative, people-first... Read More →
Thursday October 15, 2026 3:30pm - 4:20pm EDT
Legacy Room (1st Floor) 525 Superior Ave, Cleveland, OH 44114, USA

3:30pm EDT

What do people Think, Say, Feel and Do at Data Days?
Thursday October 15, 2026 3:30pm - 4:20pm EDT
The presentors will lead the sesion particpants through an empathy mapping process with the focus on a Data Day's paraticipant as the central user.  User will experience the technique of empathy mapping while developing a deeper understanding of the collective experience of being a data days attendee.  Presentors will share the results of the empathy mapping with Data Day...
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Speakers
JK

Jason Kluk-Barany

External Affairs Associate, The Center for Community Solutions
Jason Kluk-Barany serves as External Affairs Associate at The Center for Community Solutions. He works closely with the President & CEO, manages the Community Solutions Board of Directors, and builds external relationships. Before joining Community Solutions, Jason served as Strategic... Read More →
ER

Emily R Muttillo

Director of Research, The Center for Community Solutions
Emily Muttillo serves as Director of Research, Williamson Family Fellow for Applied Research at The Center for Community Solutions. She guides staff members in examining a variety of health, social, and economic conditions. Muttillo received a Bachelor of Science Degree in Psychology... Read More →
Thursday October 15, 2026 3:30pm - 4:20pm EDT
Conference Room C (2nd Floor)

3:30pm EDT

C-C-C Combo Breaker - what you can do with open government data, NGOs, and library resources
Thursday October 15, 2026 3:30pm - 4:20pm EDT
Nothing is perfect - including data sets. How do you try to put all the pieces together to complete the picture? Where are those pieces anyway? In this session, we'll explore open civic/government data sets, non-profit research, and Cleveland Public Library online resources to to help complete the puzzle and and make sure we can get all those pieces in place. 
Speakers
LS

Lisa Sanchez

Map Collection Librarian, Cleveland Public Library

avatar for Sarah Dobransky

Sarah Dobransky

General Research Collections Manager, Cleveland Public Library
Sarah Dobransky is the General Research Collections manager at Cleveland, which is a fancy title for manager of the science, business, and government departments. In 2015 she made the leap from academic to public librarian, and quickly fell in love with the civic data she used on... Read More →
Thursday October 15, 2026 3:30pm - 4:20pm EDT
Conference Room B (2nd Floor) 525 Superior Ave, Cleveland, OH 44114, USA

3:30pm EDT

Data Engineering at a Natural History Museum
Thursday October 15, 2026 3:30pm - 4:20pm EDT
We are building a new ETL system at The Cleveland Museum of Natural History in order to answer questions that can't be approached with the built-in analytics of our business systems. This talk walks through the system build-out: from the initial motivating questions, to ETL concepts, to the pipelines in production today. The stack is self-hosted on local VMs, but the same principles apply to...
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Speakers
PH

Peter Hedman

Data Visualization Analyst
Peter Hedman has worked at the Cleveland Museum of Natural History since 2018, where his work spans data engineering, analytics, and IT infrastructure. He began by creating and presenting planetarium shows and is now building a new ETL system to enable easier and better reporting... Read More →
Thursday October 15, 2026 3:30pm - 4:20pm EDT
Auditorium (Basement) 525 Superior Ave, Cleveland, OH 44114, USA

4:30pm EDT

Happy Hour
Thursday October 15, 2026 4:30pm - 7:00pm EDT
Join us for happy hour at Butcher and the Brewer. We'll have food and some limited drinks.
Thursday October 15, 2026 4:30pm - 7:00pm EDT
Butcher and the Brewer 2043 East 4th Street, Cleveland, OH 44115
 
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