Describe what your organization does, and how it relates to data science.
The UW–Madison Data Science Institute (DSI), powered by American Family Insurance, is central to UW–Madison’s strategic priority to grow its research enterprise and expand its global impact by supporting the scholarship of faculty, staff, and students. We view data science as intrinsically intersectional and embrace use-inspired research to catalyze innovation and collaboration between methodological and domain researchers. Our current focus is on building community, building capacity, and establishing DSI as a trusted partner on campus. We aim to foster an inclusive and responsible culture in data science that fuels creativity and discovery. Our strategy is informed by the Wisconsin Idea: Research and education should influence people’s lives beyond the boundaries of the classroom, lab, and campus.
Why is sponsoring the Research Bazaar important to you?
The Research Bazaar is an opportunity to build connections and foster inclusivity that will ultimately strengthen the data science community at UW–Madison. We’re looking forward to hearing how researchers across campus are using data science to further their work. We’re also excited to present our work through lightning talks, posters, and an interactive discussion about the Open Source Program Office housed at DSI.
How has the integration of data analytics or artificial intelligence influenced the product or service offerings of your organization?
One of DSI’s primary offerings is to help integrate data science and artificial intelligence into research programs across campus—and from that vantage, we’ve had a unique perspective on the explosion of data science applications over the past few years. The field of data science is changing extremely fast, and even as a practitioner, it is difficult to keep up with this continually evolving landscape. At the same time, the application of data science has been expanding into nearly all domains of research being conducted here on campus. This rapid expansion has made the role of the DSI that much more vital, and it has been fascinating to watch the ways in which the application of data science continues to evolve and transform how research is conducted and communicated.
Can you share a specific instance where your organization has effectively translated data into actionable insights or outcomes?
One of the first projects that the DSI took on, through a new collaboration process, was with a plant pathology group on campus. They needed technical assistance developing an image processing pipeline to quantify leaf damage. This group contacted DSI, and after a process of clarifying some of the concepts and deliverables, we were able to work with them to develop an open-source image processing pipeline that not only facilitated their ability to address research questions, but also resulted in the development of a generalized tool that is now available to other researchers. The work took about five months, with a six-week lead time. Our flexible structure allowed us to embed DSI personnel within their group to meet an ephemeral technical need, resulting in the successful creation of an open-source tool that supported their research and helped them pursue additional funding opportunities, including further collaboration with DSI.
Are there any notable collaborations or partnerships your organization has formed to advance data science research or applications?
Our successful collaboration with the plant pathology group is just one example of the many partnerships DSI has with researchers in departments and programs across campus including agriculture and life sciences, medicine and public health, engineering, environmental studies, human ecology, physics, chemistry, Extension, and more. Our institute offers expertise in many data science fields including AI, ML, statistics, data engineering, software engineering, and more. Additionally, we collaborate with American Family Insurance to provide competitive grants for campus data science research relevant to the insurance industry through the American Family Funding Initiative. We foster the development of partnerships within the campus data science community through the Data Science @ UW Community Map and Faces of Data Science profiles. We are partnering with the Data Science Hub, the UW–Madison Libraries, and Madison College to promote open source in academia through our Open Source Program Office (OSPO). We work with Earth Partnership to address data science and data sovereignty in field courses taught at Wisconsin’s Tribal colleges. Last, but definitely not least, we collaborated with the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation (WARF) this fall on MadPrompts – the first generative AI prompt battle in the US.