The devil's in the data: ASU researchers use data to inform statewide basic needs initiative

Across Arizona, many college students juggle classes, jobs and rising living costs — sometimes without reliable access to food or housing.

But an interdisciplinary team of ASU researchers is using data to help change that picture.

This October, a team from ASU’s Data Devils Lab — including Assistant Professor Aaron Flores, Associate Professor Connor Sheehan, graduate student Alexi Vogel, and Christina Ngo, assistant vice president of social embeddedness at ASU — presented on their collaboration with St. Mary’s Food Bank at the State Higher Education Executive Officers Association (SHEEO) Basic Needs Data Academy Convening in Phoenix last month. The event brought together seven states to strengthen how higher education systems use data to support student well-being.

The team’s presentation centered on a data dashboard created in partnership with St. Mary’s, which visualizes food insecurity and food distribution patterns across Arizona by integrating data from federal, state and nonprofit sources. The tool allows organizations to identify high-need areas, understand local barriers to food access and better target services.

By linking demographic information with food distribution data, the dashboard also reveals how factors like unemployment rates, education and neighborhood resources influence where food insecurity is most concentrated. Those insights are helping St. Mary’s — and could eventually help universities — allocate resources more strategically and strengthen support for vulnerable populations.

The project is one example of the kind of community-focused, use-inspired research happening in ASU’s Data Devils Lab. Led by Sheehan and Flores, and housed in ASU’s Sanford School of Social and Family Dynamics, the Data Devils Lab partners with Arizona organizations to help them harness data for public good. It brings together faculty and students from multiple disciplines — such as the School of Geographical Sciences and Urban Planning — to produce applied research with community impact.

For Sheehan, these projects are closely tied to the university’s aims.

“This captures the applied, socially embedded work that I think distinguishes ASU,” Sheehan said. “Data Devils gives students direct experience working with local organizations while generating real public value, exactly what ASU's charter envisions.”

He added that this kind of work also speaks to the public’s evolving expectations of higher education.

“This work feels particularly timely given that recent (Pew Research Center) data show 70% of Americans believe higher education is heading in the wrong direction, up from 56% in 2020,” he says. “Americans cite high costs, limited job preparation and weak critical-thinking outcomes as their primary concerns. We see mutually beneficial projects like this, which train students and benefit the community, as a meaningful response to those concerns.”

The team’s next goal is ambitious: uniting food banks across Arizona through a single, harmonized dataset and dashboard to monitor food insecurity statewide.