ÌìÃÀÊÓƵ

A data science round table brought representatives from a dozen industries to the ÌìÃÀÊÓƵ last week to explore opportunities for collaboration. Much of the discussion involved how cooperation between industry and the University could help address such issues as soaring health care costs, the challenges involved in sharing data, and finding ways to retain graduates with computational skills in upstate New York.

Two researchers recently visited the ÌìÃÀÊÓƵ to make the case for harnessing big data mined from social media to aid public and environmental health efforts. King-wa Fu and Matthew R. Auer presented their insights during a seminar sponsored by the Center for Energy and Environment and the Goergen Institute for Data Science.

Three teams of researchers from the ÌìÃÀÊÓƵ are recipients of pilot funding from the University’s Goergen Institute for Data Science.  The institute has identified health analytics — leveraging large sets of clinical, genomic, and lifestyle data to predict individual health outcomes — as one of its top priorities.

Researchers, including CoE Distinguished Researcher, Rajeev Raizada, at the ÌìÃÀÊÓƵ have, for the first time, decoded and predicted the brain activity patterns of word meanings within sentences, and successfully predicted what the brain patterns would be for new sentences.

People often rank public speaking as the number one fear that they face. New cloud-based technology from researchers at the ÌìÃÀÊÓƵ lets speakers polish and practice at home in front of their computer camera, while the analysis provides instant feedback about improvement.

The inaugural crop of students in Rochester’s new data science programs are completing their first year of study. Some are completing their degrees, having finished a year of graduate study or having gotten started early by taking prerequisites for an undergraduate degree. Others are just beginning. But what unites them all is an enthusiasm for discovering ways to make the most of information.

The purpose of this initial Pilot Award Program by the Goergen Institute for Data Science is to promote new cross campus, multidisciplinary collaborations with a goal to utilize data to predict and improve health outcomes. Application deadline: June 7, 2016

Professor at Carnegie Mellon University and Chief Scientist at 1-Page, Alex Smola, discusses the skills needed for a career in machine learning. The skills mentioned are incorporated into the ÌìÃÀÊÓƵ's undergraduate and graduate degree in data science.

Data science major, Ian Manzi '18, and geology major, Derrick Murekezi '19, were selected to receive a $10,000 grant from Davis Projects for Peace, a highly competitive national program that promotes peace and intercultural understanding. The two will use the funding to implement their summer project, titled “Critical Thinking for Peace: Sustaining Peace in Post-Conflict Regions,” in Rwanda this July. 

The ÌìÃÀÊÓƵ's Yu Wang and his research team have analyzed the Twitter follower demographics of Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton. They study both candidates’ followers, their user names, geographical information and each follower’s number of followers to determine their influence.

Last year, UR's Jiebo Luo and his research group trained a neural network to sort photos taken at Beijing tourist attractions by haze levels.