Data Science & DARWIN Symposium 2025

Topic: How data science and AI tools can be used across disciplinary boundaries to tackle challenging problems at the forefront of research and practice.

The 2025 Data Science & DARWIN Computing Symposium will feature keynote talks, a panel on “Advancing Data Science and AI for Grand Challenges”, poster presentations, research computing tutorials, and networking opportunities. The symposium will also feature presentations of results from the DSI Competition “Mapping DSI Faculty Networks and Expertise at the University of Delaware” and an awards ceremony with competition and poster awards.

UD Professor Kyle Davis has studied crops, crop rotation and national farming policies as the world struggles to feed its burgeoning population and use resources smartly amid climate change. Photo courtesy of Kyle Davis.

Nigerian Cropland Expansion

UD assistant professor and DSI Resident Faculty member Kyle Davis (center) and doctoral candidate, DSSA Vice President and DSI Fellow Bhoktear Khan (center right), recently had a paper published in Sciences Advances that focuses on cropland expansion in Nigeria. Davis and Khan traveled to Nigeria to conduct fieldwork in 2024. During that time, they visited farmers’ fields and interviewed farmers about their farming practices.

Cultures Converge

More than 50% of graduate students in the Department of Medical and Molecular Sciences in UD’s College of Health Sciences are international students. DSI Training Working Group member Esther Biswas-Fiss, MMSC Professor and Department Chair, attributes the department’s diversity to students’ dedication to their professional goals.

Giving Tuesday Extended! Your Support Can Make a Difference~

We are excited to share that Giving Tuesday has been extended, giving us more time to continue our efforts and raise vital funds for the Data Science Student Association (DSSA).

Thanks to our amazing community, we’ve already raised a significant amount, but we still need your support to reach our goal!

Every donation, big or small, directly contributes to our mission to improve the skills of aspiring data scientists at the University of Delaware. With your help, we will be able to propose workshops, invite speakers, and organize social events for our data science community of students

Saleem Ali, the Blue and Gold Distinguished Professor of Energy and the Environment at UD and chair of the Department of Geography and Spatial Sciences, is the lead author of a new study that suggests the need for an international minerals agreement to ensure countries can produce the green technologies necessary to battle climate change. In this photo, Ali is pictured in the Bayan Obo mining region within the Inner Mongolia region of China in 2017 in front of a massive ore nugget of rare earth minerals which is being celebrated here with the following words: "Welcome to the Rare Earths Community.” Photo courtesy of Saleem Ali

DSI is now on LinkedIn

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DSI Mapping Competition

Mapping DSI Faculty Networks and Expertise at the University of Delaware

For the Record

DSI Faculty Council member Jennifer Horney, founding director and professor of the epidemiology program in the College of Health Sciences and core faculty with UD’s Disaster Research Center, has been awarded a more than $400,000 grant from the National Science Foundation. The award, a first of its kind for UD, will allow Horney and her team to focus on translation and engagement around research on how the social service system adapted to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Animal Bait and Switch

New research by DSI Affiliated Faculty member Josh Neunuebel found male mice who are being chased use female mice to distract their aggressors. Neunuebel’s group studies how communication shapes social behaviors, and what neural circuits process this information.

Caregiving Takes a Toll

A new study in the Journal of Cancer Survivorship from DSI Affiliated Faculty member Jean-Philippe Laurenceau and colleagues has shown that fear of cancer recurrence may be associated with cortisol levels of partners of breast cancer survivors. It’s an important line of study, given that partners are known to have poorer physical health outcomes than the general population.

Serving as a nucleating effort to catalyze and coordinate data science initiatives at UD

Coalesce researchers around Data Science research themes
Develop competitive Data Science research programs
Support Data Science and Computing Core Facility
Engage students in Data Science research
Collaborate with government and industry partners

Institutional Strengths

As the vast resource of new and diverse datasets are rapidly becoming available in nearly every aspect of life, data science has the potential to advance human understanding in all branches of science and humanities, and, address grand challenges facing society. The Institute plans to combine disparate, dynamic, and distributed datasets and enable everything from predicting the future behavior of complex systems to precise medical treatments, smart energy usage, and focused educational curricula.

Activities

Resources and Funding Support

Seed funding to support team-based research center grants, infrastructure grants and training grants
Support researchers to identify cross-disciplinary collaborators and access to Data Science & Computing Core Facility
Provide an inventory of data resources, computational tools, and data science-related courses/degree programs

Team Building and Networking

Networking Events: Connecting faculty, students, industry
Annual Research Symposium
Seminars / Distinguished Lecture Series
Research Workshops
Short Courses and Training: Collaborating with academic programs
Industry Engagement: Collaborating with OEIP and Horn Program

Data Science in the News

Data Analytics Programs Take Off

Colleges are working to meet demand for big data analysis with burgeoning degree and non-degree programs. To keep up with the explosion of big data across all industries, college and universities have debuted dozens of data analytics programs during the past few...

Prepare Undergrads for Data-Driven Workplace

Academic Institutions Should Prepare Undergraduates for a Data-Driven Workplace, New Report Recommends WASHINGTON – All U.S. undergraduate students should develop a basic understanding of data science to prepare them adequately for the workforce, says a...

The Institute aims to accelerate research in data science, serving as a nucleating effort to catalyze interdisciplinary research collaborations across fields impacting our society.