Data Science

Professor Jo Hardin, program coordinator

Steering Committee: Shannon Burns, Alejandra Castillo, Charlotte Chang, Pierangelo De Pace, Ernesto Guiterrez Topeste, Ami Radunskaya

Data science at Pomona College represents the interdisciplinary field focused on data and the knowledge we gain from it. The data science minor focuses on the creation, application, and critique of tools and processes that enable one to extract and communicate meaningful insights about data. The minor leans on tools coming from computational, mathematical, and statistical traditions. The minor draws data from across many disciplines and emphasizes critical thought about how to make sense of patterns and variation across an interconnected world, how to communicate such complexities to others, domain expertise in the particular sources/targets of data, and the ethics of all these choices. Training in data science provides the ability to make sense of large-scale information, share that information with others, put insights into practice for social change, and analyze the sometimes powerful and insidious ways data influence people’s lives.

Individual faculty members who are affiliated with the data science minor are listed below. Each student electing this minor must work on their capstone project in a field outside of statistics, mathematics, and computer science. The student is responsible for identifying a faculty advisor for the project; affiliated faculty include Shannon Burns, Alejandra Castillo, Charlotte Chang, Anthony Clark, Bowman Cutter, Pierangelo De Pace, Manisha Goel, Ernesto Gutierrez Topete, Jo Hardin, David ​​Kauchak, Jun Lang, Preston McBride, Joseph Osborn, Ami Radunskaya, Kyle Wilson, Michelle Zemel, and others with courses cross-referenced in Data Science or interest in data science projects.  Affiliated faculty in statistics, mathematics, and computer science can advise projects outside of their home departments. To be on track for the capstone project, DS minors must complete courses in each of the five core areas—programming, statistics, data science, ethics, and linear algebra courses—by the end of their junior year.

• Data Science Minor
        
• Data Science Courses
      

Read more about our learning objectives:
www.pomona.edu/administration/academic-dean/learning-objectives