South Dakota Mines will offer a new specialization
in data science for math majors and a new Ph.D. in data science and engineering
starting in the fall of 2022. The South Dakota Board of Regents approved Mines
proposal to add a doctoral degree in May and the new undergraduate
specialization in data science in June.
Data science and engineering cross every discipline
at Mines and have become a fundamental component in the advancement of all STEM
fields. It’s also crucial for business, financial, social, political, and
military analytics and decision-making.
Data is virtually everywhere in the modern world.
It’s in the factory robots that build cars. It’s in the way water flows through
an aquifer. It’s in the fluctuations of the cattle market in relation to commodity
price changes. It’s in the frequency of floods and extreme weather events. Mines
is educating top-tier experts in data science and engineering who will make
vital advancements across multiple sectors of industry, government and
academia. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics ranks data scientist number 29 among
the fastest growing occupations with a growth rate of 31%.
“Industry 4.0, the fourth industrial revolution, is
based on data,” says Jeff McGough, Ph.D., professor and head of the Department of
Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at Mines. “It will be driven by
data science, machine learning, and AI. The ability to gather and understand
vast amounts of data is critical. We will be training the architects of
Industry 4.0 and bringing these high-tech industries to South Dakota.”
The new undergraduate specialization is led by the
Department of Mathematics at Mines. Roughly 12% of Mines mathematics graduates
pursue careers in data sciences, taking on positions with companies including
Boeing, Cyentia Institute, RARE Science, United Airlines, Xcel and many more. The
mathematics department at Mines offers robust instruction in applied and
computational mathematics and works closely with faculty in the Department of
Electrical Engineering and Computer Science to provide students with strong undergraduate
preparation in the field of data science.
“In an age of ever-increasing connectivity,
networking, and data collection, we are inundated by data,” says Travis
Kowalski, Ph.D., professor and head of the Department of Mathematics at Mines.
According to Domo, in 2017 roughly 2.5 quintillion bytes of data were created
every day, and by 2020 there were 40 times more bytes of data than stars in the
observable universe. “Consequently, there is a critical need across disciplines
and industries for trained mathematicians to effectively analyze and process
this tsunami of information,” Kowalski says.
The new Ph.D. in data science and engineering is a
collaboration of the departments of Electrical Engineering and Computer
Science, Industrial Engineering, and Mathematics. The new doctorate in data
science and engineering will have a direct benefit in South Dakota as a wide
range of state-based industry relies on data analysis and processing. This
includes companies like Raven, Black Hills Energy, Sanford Health, the Sanford
Underground Research Facility and many more. Furthermore, Mines doctoral
students in data science and engineering can make immediate contributions to
industry and governmental research teams as part of their own studies and
thesis.
The new doctorate in data science and engineering at
Mines complements the world-class computer science and engineering education the university offers students. Mines’ robust curriculum is on par with other top
universities in the nation and includes hands-on research that turns out
industry leaders in computer science, computer engineering, cybersecurity,
machine learning and artificial intelligence, data visualization and data
learning.