UNC's School of Data Science and Society: Fostering Interdisciplinary Collaboration

The University of North Carolina School of Data Science and Society (SDSS) is making strides in interdisciplinary collaboration, as it brings together a diverse cohort of faculty members from fields such as the humanities, social sciences, medicine, mathematics, computer science, and more.

Assistant Professor Alex McAvoy, an expert on applied data science, often shares a joke about how even mathematical biologists can struggle to guess which animal is actually being referred to when using certain tools. However, it highlights the double-edged nature of modeling - where it can be incredibly helpful but also requires careful consideration of what information is being used.

McAvoy joined SDSS in 2023 as one of its earliest faculty members and has emphasized the school's focus on a human-centric approach to data science that solves real-world problems. This emphasis aligns with his own research interests, which examine how abstracting away the 'right' amount of information can feel like both art and science.

Associate Professor Santiago Olivella notes that SDSS has given him opportunities to apply data science in new areas, such as comparative literature, where he works on similar questions but often in novel contexts. He attributes this interdisciplinary collaboration to the creation of a community that fosters knowledge translation between academics from different fields.

Meanwhile, Assistant Professor Harlin Lee argues that working outside one's own domain is crucial for advancing theories and methods of data science while applying them to real-world problems outside academia. Lee believes that students who take courses in data science should not only gain skills in computational knowledge but also develop appetites for learning more.

With the goal of providing exciting, hands-on experience for its students, SDSS offers introductory-level courses in data science that welcome participants with limited prior knowledge of the subject matter. The school aims to help them begin their journeys and create further interest in interdisciplinary knowledge-sharing.