Discovery Program x MEJ: Undergraduates Apply Data Science to Environmental Justice

Spearheaded by four graduate students from the UC Berkeley Goldman School of Public Policy, Mapping for Environmental Justice (MEJ) integrates environmental, health, and socioeconomic data of US communities into a holistic and interactive public map. Similarly to CalEnviroScreen and the Washington Environmental Health Disparities Map Project, MEJ aims to identify disadvantaged communities and provide quantitative evidence that can help lobby for better resources and regulations...

Discovery Exchange: Virtual Data Science Collaboration at Berkeley

COVID-19 has impeded many opportunities and has resulted in students feeling isolated and uninspired. To help students interested in data science stay motivated and connected through this difficult time, the UC Berkeley Division of Computing, Data Science, and Society (CDSS) piloted the Discovery Exchange, a free online hub (running from June 1 through August 14) that offers mentorship, workshops, and community to any Berkeley student...

National Data Science Education Workshop Shares Best Practices on Teaching the Next Generation of Data Scientists

The demand for data scientists continues to surge with advances in technology and medicine requiring the skills to analyze, store, and protect data. Data scientists topped LinkedIn’s “Emerging Jobs Report” over the last three years, reporting a 37% annual growth in the 2020 report. The demand is even exceeding the pool of trained data scientists, according to a 2019 Dataconomy report. UC Berkeley pioneered an...

Machine Learning and Data Science at Cal

The Spark + AI Summit 2020 is the largest gathering bringing together data teams in the Apache Spark™ community. As described by the Spark + AI Summit host, Databricks, the "s essions, and training will cover data engineering and data science content, along with best practices for productionizing AI — keeping training data fresh with stream processing, quality monitoring, testing, and serving models at a...

Five Principles to get Undergraduates involved in real-world Data Science Projects

This article was written by Jae Yeon Kim, a computational social scientist and PhD candidate in Political Science at UC Berkeley.

Reflecting on Spring 2020

Despite the difficult circumstances, student researchers in the UC Berkeley Data Science Discovery Research Program continue to push forward and work to come up with innovative solutions to the problems and issues they face, both with the situation of the current working environment and with the projects they work on. Members of two such teams, Data for Social Good (Elizabeth Leong, Jessica Rodriguez, Natasha Hellebrandt)...

Project Profile: Data-Enabled Donations

Rent isn’t the only extreme price we pay to live in California. Natural disasters like wildfires, earthquakes, droughts, landslides, and floods are all too common, and increasingly so. Crises such as these, including the current coronavirus pandemic, rely heavily on donations to support affected communities. While cash donations are generally preferred by shelters and disaster relief agencies, donations of physical supplies are often necessary for...

From the Archives: Fall 2018 Discovery Showcase

Our Fall 2018 Data Science Showcase featured data science research and projects on everything from disaster response to gerrymandering to human rights and AI. Researchers presented lightning talks and posters on a diverse array of projects with academic, government, and industry partners. Microsoft partner organizations highlighted opportunities to participate in projects pushing the frontiers of AI and exploring technology solutions to social challenges like energy...

UC Berkeley Presents Best Practices on Developing a Data Science Research Institutional Strategy

As the demand for data science research continues to increase, research institutions are taking a closer look at how to create an institutional strategy around data science research. UC Berkeley has been a leader in this area beginning with its Moore-Sloan Data Science Environments project. The Coalition for Networked Information’s spring virtual meeting featured UC Berkeley's Anthony Suen, Data Science Education Program’s Director of Programs...

Spring 2018 Relaunch with BIDS

New page on BIDS formalizing the transition from the BIDS Collaborative to the Data Science Discovery Program.