Van der Merwe receives U Research Award
Congratulations to University of Utah School of Computing professor Jacobus (Kobus) Van der Merwe, who is one of six U faculty to receive this year’s Distinguished Research Award from the Office of the Vice President for Research.
Vivek Gupta receives prestigious Bloomberg Fellowship
Vivek Gupta, a PhD student working with Vivek Srikumar was selected as a recipient of the 2021-2022 Bloomberg Data Science Ph.D. Fellowship. Vivek will receive financial and professional support to pursue his research interests over the course of the academic year as he work towards the completion of his doctoral degree. He was one of 9 students selected this year.
The fellowship program is an extension of Bloomberg’s Data Science Research Grant Program, which has promoted relationship building between the company and academic researchers around the world in the fields broadly construed as AI, such as machine learning (ML), natural language processing (NLP), information retrieval (IR), recommender systems, time series analyses, and optimization. Working with the company’s CTO Office, more than 50 data scientists, machine learning engineers, and AI researchers participated in the review of more than 100 fellowship applications this year. They selected recipients on the basis of their outstanding proposals and academic references. Each of this year’s Fellows displayed exceptional novelty in their fields and delivered proposals of relevance to Bloomberg with significant business potential.
More details at the Bloomberg official blog post- https://www.techatbloomberg.com/blog/announcing-bloomberg-data-science-ph-d-fellowship-winners-2021-2022.
SOC Student receives Women in Tech Award
Congratulations to University of Utah School of Computing student Anna Bell, who received the student 2021 Women Tech Award from the Women Tech Council (WTC).
SoC Faculty Receive DOE/ASCR X-Stack Award
University of Utah School of Computing professor Ganesh Gopalakrishnan and assistant professor Pavel Panchekha have received one of the five DOE/ASCR X-Stack awards from the U.S. Department of Energy to adapt scientific software for next-generation high-performance computing (HPC) systems.
Inclusive Computing Center
The School of Computing has officially launched the new Utah Center for Inclusive Computing (UCIC), which recognizes the importance of inclusion in engineering and computing and is designed to boost the percentage of students from groups currently underrepresented in computing.
SoC's Ricci Tops Research Grants for 2021
University of Utah research funding continues to grow, totaling $641 million in fiscal year 2021, which ended June 30. The total is a new record high for the U, which achieved milestones of $600 million in funding last year and $500 million three years ago.
Introduction to The Data Science Club
When and why did the club start?
The Data Science Center is a passion project that has been in the works for several years. Prof. Jeff Phillips and others spent months trying for a data science center to help students interested in Data Science, which was still a fringe issue at the University when the center was founded. An official club was also a part of this pet project. Finally, in summer 2020, a group of six students — Grad student Vivek Gupta and Undergrads Serena Aeschilman, Todd Derrick, Tajen Freeman, Pranav Rajan, and Koriann South — joined together to make an official club. We spent that summer hosting Data Science guest lectures, and the club received official recognition in the autumn, when we began sponsoring more activities.
What’s the club’s goal?
The Data Science Club’s aim is to teach data science and machine learning to students of various skill levels (first year undergrad to senior Ph.D.) through tutorials, industry presentations, and hands-on experience. We want to make normally intimidating topics (like Deep Learning) more approachable through club activities.
What are the prerequisites to join?
Any student, regardless of major, year, or past experience, is welcome to join our activities. Similarly, any student with the time and desire to be a club coordinator can apply.
How often do you meet, and what do you do at meetings?
During the autumn and spring semesters, the Data Science Club meets around every two weeks. We like to mix technical events with social/skill-building activities. Workshops that we create ourselves or technical presentations from professors or industry experts are the most common kind of technical events. (You can check out prior workshops here and talks on our webpage here.). The types of social/skill-building activities vary, and might range from tea parties to GitHub tutorials.
Get on your soapbox: Why is this club important? Why should people join?
This club is significant to us because it lowers the data science entrance hurdle. Through the club, we have learned more about Data Science than we could have studied in a class, and we have been able to pass that information on to others in a way that we believe is easy to grasp for those who are just getting started with Data Science.
For many people, data science appears to be too difficult and frightening to understand or learn. We want to simplify the process. We want to contribute to the creation of a community in which we can all learn from and support one another. Learning does not have to be difficult or complicated just because the subject matter is.
We believe that anybody interested in Data Science should join the Data Science club, especially those who are intimidated by the topic or don’t know where to begin.
If people are interested, how can they join or find out more?
If you’re interested in attending one of our events, please join our Discord server and visit our website. If you want to be a coordinator, complete all of the steps above and submit an email to uofudatascienceclub@gmail.com with your name. Do sign up for our seminar mailing list.