By MARTY LEVINE
Stephen Wisniewski, one of the heads of the new Responsible Data Science@Pitt program says, “You can make more efficient decisions” with proper use of data science and you miss out on innovation without it.
“We don’t necessarily have enough people trained in data science to power this local economy to where it needs to be,” says Wisniewski, vice provost for budget and analytics.
He and Michael Colaresi, the other leader of program and associate vice provost for data science, anticipate a very useful outcome for Southwestern Pennsylvania from a new $235,000 grant from the Richard King Mellon Foundation. It will help Pitt provide data science training to local industry professionals, targeted at top employers and the employees who can best use it.
New online educational modules, being developed by Pitt professors who teach the applications of data science today, will give workers in the largest local industries the training they’ve been missing — for both their careers and companies to prosper.
Responsible data science (the idea that data should be collected, analyzed and used ethically and equitably) applies everywhere in industry today, Colaresi says — from accounting to advertising as well as a company’s main operational decisions. For a package delivery company, for instance, that may mean using data science to determine a routing algorithm for its trucks to create the least pollution and to best distribute the amount of work everyone does (and the pay they earn).
Applying responsible data science is even more complicated in medicine, since that requires taking into account that “some studies apply more to some populations than others,” Colaresi points out. “Responsible data science makes sure you are aware (of the gap) and extending the study to everyone.”
The new educational modules will be designed, he says, “to meet people where they are” in industry, “even if you don’t have a computer background or a math background.” Industries “have all been changed by data science. We want to have examples that take people’s experience and show them that data science is workable,” using the skills and tools those in industry need to succeed.
The program will be aimed at those who do not have a BA or who received a BA degree in a non-STEM field, and who work in one of the industries that cover 80 percent of the top 20 employers (retail and marketing, banking and finance, government and nonprofits, manufacturing, supply chain operations and public health) in Allegheny, Westmoreland, Washington, Butler, Beaver and Cambria counties.
“It was important for us to be local and have impact in Southwestern Pennsylvania,” says Colaresi. “This is going to help us make the biggest impact we can for the region.”
Invitations are going out now to leading regional employers to participate in the program’s advisory board, Wisniewski says. These companies will help determine how many and who exactly can benefit from which specific educational modules, with the goal of beginning the development of the prototype modules in mid-April.
Marty Levine is a staff writer for the University Times. Reach him at martyl@pitt.edu or 412-758-4859.
Have a story idea or news to share? Share it with the University Times.