While pursuing a degree at the Maxwell School, Rose Tardiff ’15 B.A. (Geog) became involved with the Salt City Harvest Farm, a community farm near Syracuse where newcomers from all over the world grow food and make social connections.

The summer before her senior year, Tardiff coordinated on-farm activities and volunteers, making the program the focus of her capstone thesis.

“Looking back on the research, it was an attempt to make some data-driven recommendations, based on the participants, their experiences and aspirations,” says Tardiff. She got involved with the organization through another local nonprofit, Syracuse Grows, and its affiliation with the Syracuse Community Geography Program, an initiative co-directed by Jonnell Robinson, associate professor of geography and the environment.

“It was through Syracuse Grows and Salt City Harvest Farm, and connecting with people here, that I came to feel like this was a place I could put down roots and be part of the community,” she says.

Tardiff now serves as the City of Syracuse’s first director of neighborhood and business data and evaluation. She leads a small team responsible for data collection, analysis, mapping and evaluation for various departmental divisions to bring innovation to operations, measure impact and inform programs. She works under the deputy commissioner of neighborhood development to support code enforcement, permitting, zoning, housing and urban development entitlement grants, business development and housing, and neighborhood planning.

Tardiff described how the position is designed to offer additional capacity to consolidate and interpret data from multiple sources and departments. “It can be a big lift to understand what you’re working with, pull from different source systems, and then stitch it all together,” she says. “Data and mapping have always been a part of neighborhood development. But the decision was to create some dedicated roles and capacity where it could be the sole focus.”

Recently, her team has been using data to report on compliance with code enforcement’s rental registry, which tracks non-owner occupied housing units. Her team has been tracking occupancy changes and new rental properties that have come online with the goal of establishing a “fuller universe of all rental properties.” The rental registry involves proactive inspections at least every three years to identify and remediate any hazardous housing conditions to ensure the health and safety of occupants.

“We want to identify new rentals to inform owners of requirements, and for owners that haven’t applied or obtained a rental certificate, identify which next enforcement steps are needed,” says Tardiff.