Meet the MS in Data Science 2020 Cohort
They’ve come from Canadaand from right here in Charlottesville. Others have traveled from other states around the U.S. and from South Korea, India, China, and Taiwan.
Half are women and one-fifth are first-generation college students.
They have mathematics, English, biology, statistics, nursing, journalism, public policy, computer science, astronomy, German and engineering degrees.
And they want to change the world.
They want to solve public health crises, lead research at major tech firms, revolutionize government institutions, empower their communities, design autonomous products, develop game software, drive policy change at the United Nations, work with the NFL, and more.
They want to be data scientists, analysts and engineers. Leaders, creators, and explorers. Collaborators, innovators, and problem solvers.
“Applying and enrolling in the MSDS program was a leap of faith for me,” said Aditi Rajagopal, MSDS/MBA ’21. “I want the opportunity to stretch my technical skills and to become a more empowered technologist. Through the MSDS program, I'm hoping to build a strong data science foundation, and gain a more well-rounded perspective on the applications of data science that transcend industries and disciplines.”
Aditi and the other members of the cohorts began the residential MSDS program in July. Over the course of the 11-month MSDS program and the 24-month dual degree MSDS/MBA program, they will be immersed in machine learning, data ethics and justice, text analytics and text mining, data engineering and management, data visualization, linear modeling, and computer science and systems engineering. And throughout the course of the program, they will undertake a capstone project, which offers the opportunity to work as part of a small team and solve problems facing real clients in a variety of public and private industries and organizations
Capstone projects, chosen by the students, cover an array of topics, from finance, to social justice, to medicine. From assessing employee performance in manufacturing to analyzing drone performance in defense, investigating global humanitarian crises to understanding the crisis of homelessness, discovering the impact of gender imbalance in the financial industry to the ways that modern planning and zoning affect equity and inclusion in communities—these are some of the projects this cohort will investigate over the course of the next year. They will also be working with clients; managing, engineering and analyzing data; maintaining ethical oversight into their own biases and others; and communicating their results to people with varying levels of technical understanding.
“I'm especially excited about the DSI's collaborative and interdisciplinary approach to learning,” said MSDS ’20 student Benjamin Schenck. “In addition to learning the technical tools of data science from my professors, I am grateful for the opportunity to gain insights into the field from the other students in my small cohort—each of them coming to the program with a range of unique backgrounds and experiences.”