Speaker
Description
The ultimate goal of our program is to provide interdisciplinary education and research opportunities in data and decisions science for undergraduate students who are experts in a core discipline of engineering or biology, but who are also proficient in the alternate discipline. We are training students with complementary disciplinary expertise that can address problems at the engineering/biology interface, and show them, via stimulating grand challenge problems, the utility of data science techniques, thereby promoting data literacy and providing basic training in data science to key members of the science and engineering workforce. We have launched a unique HDR DSC program at Virginia Tech (coordinating organization), Morehouse College (HBCU for men, Georgia, implementing organization), Morgan State (HBCU for men and women, Maryland, implementing organization), and Hampden-Sydney College (all-male college, Virginia, implementing organization). A new collaborative, multi-university capstone course 'Solving Big Problems with Big Data’ is being taught simultaneously at all four universities. Through this course, multi-university teams of students work together to identify relevant broad social, global, economic, cultural and technical needs and constraints, and determine the ways in which their complementary technical skills contribute to addressing complex data science grand challenges at the engineering/biology interface. In Fall, 2021, the project provided data science educational opportunities for 26 undergraduate students and one graduate student through the first course offering. Students were introduced to professionals in various sectors through 8 different stakeholder presentations, where they learned challenges of those sectors. In Summer, 2022, the project provided paid summer undergraduate data science research opportunities for 21 participants in 10 labs at Virginia Tech. This Fall, 2022, the project is providing educational opportunities for an additional 22 undergraduates that are enrolled in our undergraduate course for its second course offering.
