The Policy Intelligence Lab

PI-Lab is UEI’s applied research and public-interest technology unit, dedicated to building tools that make complex policy landscapes clearer, more accessible, and more democratic. We treat policy analysis not as a static academic exercise, but as a dynamic, computational challenge that demands new methods and new imagination.

At PI-Lab, we design and deploy systems that read, interpret, and visualize policy in real time—from federal appropriations bills to local ordinances shaping the lives of migrants, tenants, and city residents. Our work bridges political science, urban governance, civic technology, and machine intelligence, giving researchers and policymakers the ability to see across documents, detect hidden patterns, and understand the structural consequences of legislative change.

Our flagship project—the evolution from a simple Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) tool into a full Intelligent Retrieval (IR) engine—captures what PI-Lab stands for: rigorous engineering married to real civic purpose. By combining vector databases, LLM reasoning, and clean, intuitive interfaces, PI-Lab builds policy tools that work for people, not just experts. PI-Lab is driven by a mission to democratize policy knowledge, empower communities, and push the frontier of student-built public-interest tech. We prototype fast, test ambitiously, and always aim to produce insights that matter for cities, institutions, and the communities they serve.