Month: January 2023

A highlight of the day was the research talks, especially the inspiring keynote by Jeff Leek, the chief data officer at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center in Seattle. His talk told the story of how he launched a massive online course in data science, and wherein the resulting curriculum has served more than 8 million students. He then described how he leveraged this towards designing and running a version of the curriculum, DataTrail, as an educational springboard for the underserved low-income communities of Baltimore and beyond. This work stimulated much discussion, including how it related to the maturing data science curriculum here at the University of Utah. Another engaging part of the day was an industry panel staffed by local data scientists that provided great insight into the trade-offs of in-person versus remote work, especially as it pertains to new data scientists.

The event also provided a great opportunity for many to interact with local industry. This included a career fair which included the day’s sponsors: Sorenson, Recursion, and bioMérieux. The organizers would also like to thank the Office of the Vice President of Research and the National Science Foundation for financial support and the One Utah Data Science Hub and Kahlert School of Computing for organizational support. The day was a great success and there is excitement to do it again.