Congratulations to Dr Francesco Rampazzo, Lecturer in Demography at the Leverhulme Centre for Demographic Science, who has received an honourable mention for the Italian Society of Statistics’ (Società Italiana di Statistica) award for best thesis in demography.
The annual award is named in honour of demographer Valeria Solesin who tragically lost her life during the November 2015 terrorist attack on the Bataclan theatre in Paris.
Dr Rampazzo was presented with the honourable mention earlier today at the Italian Society of Statistics 2023 conference in Ancona, alongside the winner Orsola Torrisi.
Francesco received the honourable mention for his PhD thesis on Following a trail of breadcrumbs: a study of migration through digital traces at the University of Southampton, in collaboration with the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research.
The thesis explored the potential of utilising digital traces to measure international migration, revealing their effectiveness in capturing trends and changes in migration patterns.
Dr Rampazzo continues to use digital trace data at Oxford’s Leverhulme Centre for Demographic Science and Department of Sociology. This includes using Facebook data to reveal the underestimation of migrants in the UK in 2018, determining the accuracy of Facebook advertising data in social science research, and using social media activity to monitor population displacement in Ukraine.
Following the awards ceremony, Dr Rampazzo added ‘Thanks to the Italian Society of Statistics for this honourable mention and I am deeply honoured to be recognised alongside Orsola Torrisi. This honourable mention motivates me further in the pursuit to improve demography and social sciences using digital trace and consumer data.’
