Scientific Computing for Understanding Social Issues (SCUSI) is a collective of faculty and researchers with skills and expertise in scientific computing and data analysis who are actively applying, or interested to apply, their computational skills to aspects of understanding certain social issues.

As a concrete example, Gary Davis and Ravi Pakalapati have worked on analyzing the spatial and temporal point patterns of political violence in the United States and in India. This is essentially an issue of political geography.

While we have deliberately focused on using scientific computing to understand social issues, we are cognizant that much of what we attempt and describe here could productively be viewed as part of computational social science. While many faculty or researchers might come to apply methods of scientific computing to understanding social issues they will not, in general, be social scientists by training or occupation. On the other hand, social scientists who are keen to understand, develop, and use scientific computing skills in the understanding of social issues are most welcome to join this collective.