Data Science

About the Interdisciplinary Program

Data Science addresses data mining, predictive analytics and machine learning in big data. This data science program is a mathematically and computationally rigorous, interdisciplinary program, enabling the discovery of patterns in large sets of data sets and data streams. The Data Science program combines statistics, mathematics, computational thinking, programming, learning theory, logic, information theory, complexity, and artificial intelligence. In addition, students choose a cognate discipline and associated courses, culminating in a Data Science project directed by a faculty member from their chosen cognate.

The purpose of the Data Science program is to provide students with the theoretical foundations and practical analytic experiences needed to understand and utilize methods for knowledge discovery in data sets and data streams. Integration and practice with informatics tools is accomplished within a cognate discipline.

Today’s demand for expertise in data mining, predictive analytic and machine learning far exceeds the current supply. Data Science graduates are highly employable in business, industry, and in professional fields such as medicine (e.g., health informatics), law (e.g., computational forensics), and government (e.g., national security and cyber-warfare). Graduates wishing to pursue higher degrees in machine learning, or more domain specific fields such as bioinformatics, are well prepared for graduate study by completing the Data Science program.

Majors

• Data Science, B.S.  

Minors

• Data Science Minor