Remembering Thomas M. Carsey

1966 – 2018

Tom Carsey, the Odum Institute’s director from 2011 to 2017, died Wednesday, February 21, 2018, after a long battle with ALS.

Tom was the Odum Institute’s leader (and biggest cheerleader) during a difficult period for the University and, especially, for the institute. Tom guided the institute in finding a new home in Davis Library, developed new business models to sustain the institute’s services despite declining state support, and refocused the institute’s growth to reflect the influence of emerging computational and quantitative social science methods in the age of social media.

Under Tom’s leadership, the institute established a new unit for cyberinfrastructure, extended Odum’s digital archive to a university-wide role as the UNC Dataverse, became a national leader in Open Science and data transparency, and greatly expanded and updated its short courses and summer training programs. He did all of this, and much more, with great patience, intelligence, compassion and humor.

Tom resigned from his position as the institute’s director on June 30, 2017, but stayed involved in framing the institute’s and the University’s efforts to foster data science and data-driven research on campus. Tom was our leader, our colleague and our friend. We miss him.

Memorials can be made to a travel fund for graduate students, created in his honor, to attend the State Politics and Policy Conference: http://www.apsanet.org/section22 OR to the department of political science at Indiana University where a fund named in his honor created a visiting lectureship and graduate student support. Go to this link and type CARSEY in the “search all funds” box: https://www.myiu.org/one-time-gift.