2025 Du Bois Data Lab

Many investigative journalism stories start with data, but you have to learn how to access it and then how to pull relevant information from it. If you want to learn the basics of data gathering, analysis and visualization, we have a workshop just for you!

The Center for Journalism & Democracy, in partnership with the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at CUNY, will host the Du Bois Data Lab at Howard University from May 27 – June 5, 2025 (includes two travel days). It is a 10-day summer intensive course designed for undergraduate journalism students at Historically Black Colleges and Universities who are interested in learning how to uncover impactful and compelling stories buried in data. The Lab is named after W.E.B. Du Bois, who used empirical and data-driven research as early as the 1890’s to study and report on Black communities. Previous data experience is not required

The Du Bois Data Lab is a free program. We cover students’ travel to and from Washington, D.C., meals and dorm housing at Howard University. 

Apply Here

About the Data Lab

More on the Skills You'll Learn

  • Building a strategy to find data in your stories
  • Find public datasets for use in journalism
  • Use scraping techniques to access data locked in PDFs and documents
  • Identify inequities and disparities within datasets
  • Clean and analyze data in spreadsheets
  • Use basic math and statistics to extract stories from data
  •  Use numbers effectively in your writing
  • Create data visualizations like charts, graphs and maps to clarify information

Eligibility Requirements

  • Must be an enrolled undergraduate student at an HBCU
  • Must be a journalism major
  • Must be able to attend the full program, May 27-June 5, in person at Howard University
  • Local students are expected to stay in dorm housing with the full cohort

Documents Needed to Apply

  • Unofficial transcript
  • Two letters of reference

The Du Bois Data Lab is a free, week-long, hands-on workshop designed to help undergraduate journalism students transform their storytelling through data.  

Apply for the Data Lab Here