Enabling Safe, Fair, and Free Speech…at Scale

If Jane Austen ran an internet platform, what would it look like? That’s how Alex Feerst, the Head of the Legal team at Medium, opened a recent Human Contexts and Ethics Conversation on moderating online content. The conversation, which took place just before the 2016 mid-term elections, was organized by the UC Berkeley Division of Data Sciences to build on student discussions in the Human...

Berkeley Announces Transformative New Division

Today, UC Berkeley announced the next stage in its realization of the research university for the 21 st Century – serving a connected world, recognizing the profoundly integrative character of the frontiers of knowledge, and using unprecedented observational and computational capabilities to make a positive difference in that world. Building on the exciting accomplishments and the culture of common purpose embodied in our interim Division...

Translational Data Science workshop reflections featured in Nature

This month’s issue of Nature includes a spotlight on Translational Data Science , co-authored by the Division of Data Sciences Interim Dean David Culler, West Big Data Innovation Hub Executive Director Meredith Lee, and colleagues. Highlighting the value of interdisciplinary, use-inspired collaboration, the article links to the workshop held last year at the Berkeley Institute of Data Science , where representatives from industry, academia, nonprofits...

Student Profile: Subhiksha Mani

After taking Data 8 as a freshman, Subhiksha Mani discovered the potential of data science to drive discovery. Now a senior, she plans to major in Data Science with a domain emphasis in Cognition. Subhiksha shares her thoughts about the growth of data science at Berkeley, her internship at YouTube, and the upside of uncertainty. This interview was condensed and edited for clarity. How did...

Students Help Students at the Center for Connected Learning

An innovative collider space on the first floor of Moffitt Library is now available for students interested in data science. The beta version of the future Center for Connected Learning provides data science peer advising and consulting through a collaboration between UC Berkeley Library and the Division of Data Sciences, and maker workspaces provided by b.Makerspace, which offers 3-D printing and a VR headset area...

Fall 2018 Welcome from Interim Dean Culler

Now that the Fall term has begun to settle down, I would like to share a snapshot of the activities in and around the Division of Data Sciences reflecting the connectedness of research, learning, and community at Berkeley. In the next few weeks, students will be able to declare the Data Science major approved last Spring for the College of Letters and Science. An experienced...

UC Berkeley's Data Science Major Takes Off

With 780 students filing pre-declarations as soon as they became available earlier this fall, UC Berkeley’s new Data Science major is on the way to quickly becoming one of the most popular on campus. Advisors are busy helping seniors and juniors declare, and soon will move on to others who are eager to add the Data Science major. Designed through collaboration across diverse disciplines, the...

Analyzing Mysterious Signals from Faraway Galaxies

Check out GeekWire's feature on some of the latest developments from the fascinating Berkeley SETI Research Center. In recent years, participants in the Division's Data Science Discovery Program have helped advance this work analyzing radio bursts from remote galaxies to better understand their origins. Could the patterns signals from intelligent extraterrestrial civilizations? The exploration continues.

Pipeline to Innovation: Insights from a Chat with Tom Kalil

“Data to knowledge to action.” This pipeline to social impact in data science was among the interesting perspectives that Tom Kalil shared in a “Waterside Chat” at a recent California Water Data Hackathon. Sponsored by the Division of Data Sciences and Berkeley Institute for Data Science (BIDS), the hackathon was part of the California Safe Drinking Water Data Challenge, an effort to leverage data to...

Data Collaboratives: Moving from Knowledge to Action

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