SARASOTA, Fla., — The Master’s in Applied Data Science program at New College announced today it has received nearly $98,000 in grant funding from the Agricultural Research Agency of the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA). This grant will fund paid internships for students in 2025, marking the third consecutive year the USDA has sponsored the work of New College data science students. The program leverages data science and AI to address pressing challenges in agriculture, sustainability, and environmental science, while equipping students with critical skills for high-demand careers.

“This is a fantastic opportunity for our students to apply their coursework to real-world problems identified by USDA researchers,” said Bernhard Klingenberg, Director of the Applied Data Science Program at New College. “The renewed USDA grant continues to provide students with practical experiences in critical fields such as food security, sustainability, and biodiversity. I look forward to continuing our collaboration with the USDA, training the next generation of data scientists to tackle complex problems and excel in high-growth careers.”

Second-year data science student April Ainsworth used last summer’s USDA grant to research honeybee communication through audio data. As an experienced beekeeper herself, Ainsworth continues her research this fall with the goal of mitigating honeybee population declines.

“I applied both the foundational skills and advanced technical knowledge I gained from my Master’s program at New College to my USDA internship,” Ainsworth said. “Thanks to my data science training, I was able to collaborate with USDA scientists on experiments investigating honeybee communication and hive conditions, which are critical to commercial pollination.”

Another student, Matthew Wilcox, spent his USDA-funded summer internship researching sustainable packaging materials derived from milk proteins. His work focuses on finding eco-friendly alternatives to plastic, addressing the global environmental challenge of reducing plastic waste.

Melvin Adkins, who graduated from the program in May, now works as an analyst for a financial consulting company. He completed a 14-week USDA internship last spring, analyzing over 1.6 million records on high-risk arthropods intercepted at U.S. ports of entry. His work aimed to assess the risk of a costly biological invasion that could cause damage to U.S. agricultural commodities.

Now in its 10th year, the Master’s in Applied Data Science program at New College has a proven track record of preparing graduates for data science careers that tackle local and global challenges. The program emphasizes project-based learning and hands-on experience across industries, from agriculture to finance. Graduates are working in roles that apply data science and AI-driven solutions to critical issues such as sustainable agriculture and supply chain resilience.

“The demand for data scientists who can use AI to solve real-world challenges is at an all-time high,” said New College President Richard Corcoran. “Our program equips students with the tools to make a real impact—whether they are addressing food security, climate change, or global sustainability issues. The USDA grant is a testament to the power of combining academic excellence with practical, data-driven problem-solving, preparing our students for the future.”

Taught by faculty with industry experience, the program ensures students are proficient in key technologies for data processing and predictive modeling, balancing theory with hands-on application. To learn more about the program, visit ncf.edu/grad-applied-data-science or follow it on LinkedIn.

SARASOTA, Fla. — The Applied Data Science program at New College has finalized a grant agreement totaling $97,680 from the United State Department of Agriculture that will support internships for five of its students. 2023 marks the second time the USDA has sponsored internships for New College data science students.

The funding will allow second-year graduate students to take part in semester-long paid internships next spring, working alongside USDA scientists on topics such as food safety, soil, water or crop management, climate adaptation, animal welfare or genetics. First-year data science students will complete paid internships in summer 2024.

“Applied data science at New College is a rigorous program that produces industry-ready graduates, and the caliber of internships available to our students are indicative of their readiness to contribute in the workplace,” said New College President Richard Corcoran.

“This is an excellent opportunity for our grad students to apply their data science coursework to a very specific problem in the field,” said Bernhard Klingenberg, the Director of the Applied Data Science Program and the principal investigator of the grant. “It’s a win-win for both sides. Our students learn how to work as a data scientist in a larger team, and the USDA is glad to help train the next generation of scientists proficient in AI.”

Aaron Spielman participated in an internship through the USDA during the previous grant cycle. He spent the summer with the National Soil Erosion Lab at Purdue University.

“I was able to apply many of the skills I developed in the Data Science Master’s program to a project involving the development of a deep learning model that identifies the location of subsurface tile drains from high resolution satellite imagery and environmental data,” said Spielman.

The Master’s in Applied Data Science program at New College has a 100% job placement rate within three months of graduation with a median post-graduate salary of $95,000. Fortune Magazine has ranked it among the “Best Data Science Master’s Programs” in 2022 and 2023.

The Quad Fellowship supports Master’s and Ph.D. students in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) – 25 from each of the four countries. This first-of-its-kind scholarship program is designed to build ties among the next generation of scientists and technologists.

Joshua earned his bachelor’s degree in statistics and applied mathematics, and is now enrolled in New College’s Applied Data Science graduate program, with his main research interest in astrostatistics, a crossover between astrophysics and statistics.

Each Quad Fellow will receive a one-time award of $50,000, plus $25,000 in additional support. This can be used for tuition, research, fees, books, room and board, and other related academic expenses. In addition, all 100 of those chosen will continue their studies in the United States and will participate in an international STEM residential program in Melbourne, Australia in the summer of 2023.

“Each of these students has demonstrated their commitment to advancing innovation and collaboration among our four great democracies and an enthusiasm for building a better tomorrow for the Indo-Pacific and the world,” said National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan, in announcing the awards.

Locally Grown

Joshua is a native Floridian, was born and raised in the Sarasota-Bradenton area, and attended Bradenton Christian School. “I come from a lower-middle-class family that really sacrificed a lot so I could have a private education. I am also a first-generation college student, and worked to put myself through school.  I selected New College, where I could get a high-quality, affordable education and still be close to home,” he said.

“As a teenager, I became interested in very existential questions and popular science. I remember watching Cosmos with astrophysicist Neil DeGrasse Tyson in ninth or tenth grade, and that sparked my interest in astronomy. Never, though, did I envision that I would one day be doing research in astronomy and statistics until I came to New College,” Joshua said.

Before the Quad Fellowship: New College Life

“My first year at New College I stumbled around, trying to figure out what I wanted to study. I started off with an interest in economics, but then I started taking some statistics and data science courses, and everything started to change,” he said.

In the fall of 2020, Josh was selected as a Barancik Scholar, receiving a scholarship funded by a grant from the Charles and Margery Barancik Foundation that provides support for students from the Sarasota-Manatee area with financial need. Not only did it help with his tuition, but also expenses related to his conference presentations.

Joshua’s statistics professor, undergraduate advisor, thesis supervisor and now interim director of the Applied Data Science graduate program is Dr. Bernhard Klingenberg.

“I got to know Josh about 3 ½ years ago, when he took his first course with me,” said Klingenberg, who recommended Joshua for a summer internship at the Harvard & Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. “It was an amazing opportunity,” Klingenberg said. “When he first studied with me, he had not even thought about becoming a statistician. He was more interested in economics and was thinking of going into big finance – perhaps leading to a job on Wall Street. He came back from the Harvard internship infected with the research bug, and using statistics as the basis for his research.”

From Harvard to NASA

“Joshua has tremendous initiative and drive, and has always found exciting opportunities for himself,” Dr. Klingenberg said.

“In my second year, I began looking for an internship,” Joshua said. “Dr. Klingenberg told me about REUs (research experiences for undergraduates). I looked around and I came across a program at the Harvard & Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. I reached out to the program coordinator, Dr. Katharine Reeves, who encouraged me to apply. A few months later, I opened up my email and saw I had been accepted. That was the moment that changed my life,” he said. 

This was during the first year of Covid, so it was offered online. Joshua was assigned several mentors and was put on a statistically heavy project – on solar flares. “It was a really great experience. I learned about research, and how academia works,” Joshua said. “Since that summer I have continued working with that same research team for about 2 ½ years now. The project has grown and changed considerably from when we first started. We are now working on papers that will be submitted to journals, and I continue to work at the Center for Astrophysics part-time.”

This past summer Joshua attended a conference at the Center for Astrophysics. He was able to visit the Harvard campus and the astrophysics center and got to meet the mentors and colleagues that he had been working with virtually. “This experience is what got me into the field of astrostatistics, and is also where the idea for my thesis was born,” Joshua said.

His thesis, titled “Statistical Modeling of Solar Flare Occurrences and Their Energy Distributions” turned into a year-long project analyzing solar flares, then utilizing statistical models to better understand the data that had been collected. 

The summer of 2021 Joshua applied for more internships. NASA hired Joshua as a STEM intern with the Hubble Communications Team. “It was great. They had social media data from all of the Hubble outreach accounts – Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and others – for the past several years, and I analyzed that data,” Joshua explained. “I worked with my mentor, Jim Jeletic, who is the deputy project manager for the Hubble Space Telescope mission. He was a wonderful mentor and it was an invaluable internship,” Joshua said.

Working with the Stars 

One of Joshua’s favorite sayings is, “You don’t know if you don’t ask.” Joshua told Jim he was really interested in STEM research and asked if he knew anyone at NASA Goddard who might have a project on which he could work. “He connected me with Dr. Gioia Rau and Dr. Kenneth Carpenter.

“I ended up working on a project studying the chromospheres of cool, evolved stars.” I have been using Hubble Space Telescope data looking at the outer atmospheres of these stars. I worked part-time at the Exoplanets and StellarAstrophysics Lab at NASA Goddard from the fall of 2021 through spring of 2022. In the summer of 2022, I continued that work on stellar atmospheres with NASA Goddard, and was able to visit the center and work there for a bit. I am currently finishing up my research with Dr. Rau and Dr. Carpenter, and writing a paper on my research.

“I learned so much about STEM research, public outreach and scientific communication – and the impact that science and research can have on society,” Joshua said of his internships. 

The Quad Fellowship

Meanwhile, late last spring, a new fellowship crossed the desk of Duane Smith, who works in the New College office of Career Engagement and Opportunity.

“I knew Josh from working with him before on other applications,” Smith said. “So, when I learned about the Quad Fellowship, and what the Quad Fellowship was looking for – individuals who will use science to have a positive impact on society – I sent him the information, thinking that it would be a good fit.”

Smith adds that the monetary award is there to support their education, but the fellowship is designed to facilitate the interaction between those who will be the next generation of leaders in their particular disciplines. “It will also give these students an international perspective that will be crucial to their success in 21st century technology. Building these connections will impact the entirety of Joshua’s career,” Smith said.

“Joshua is certainly well-deserving of this fellowship,” Smith added. “When we get up into this airy region of highly prestigious awards, it is intensely competitive. I am just really happy for him.”

“This is the type of fellowship that can change my life and career,” Joshua said. “As a first-generation student from a relatively small town, who has never been out of the country before, the Quad Fellowship presents a tremendous opportunity. Being exposed to these different cultures will change my life on a personal level. And professionally, it will undoubtedly change the trajectory of my life, just like the REU did.

“I may not yet know all the ways in which things will change. I’ll know that as I move through the program. But I do know it is going to change my life.”

Joshua will be graduating with his master’s degree at the end of the summer of 2023. He has applied to Ph.D. programs around the country, including Carnegie Mellon and Harvard.

Asked about Joshua’s future, Klingenberg said, “I think Joshua will land in a very good Ph.D. program in statistics. I certainly see him becoming an active contributor to our sciences, answering important questions in whatever area he chooses. He may stay in astrophysics, or that may change as he continues his education.”

Klingenberg added that Joshua is a phenomenal networker. “It is amazing how he brings people together. For example, Joshua co-founded an astronomy club here at the college, and organized star-watching events on our bayfront. He is very gifted at networking, and certainly the connections he has made at Harvard and at NASA and through the Quad Fellowship will open doors for him in the future.”

Gayle Guynup is a contributor to the New College News.

“We are extremely happy that our program is now recognized in national rankings as one of the top in-person master’s programs in this field,” said Burcin Bozkaya, Ph.D., the director of the Applied Data Science graduate program at New College.

New College’s program is one of only 28 listed in the 2022 ranking. The signature 36-credit-hour, four-semester program includes a rigorous two-year curriculum with many practical components—including a summer internship, a full-time paid practicum, and an industry-led capstone project course.

“These components allow our graduates to have substantial real-world experiences before they join the workforce,” Bozkaya said.

Fortune reported that data scientist job openings have grown by 480 percent since 2016, according to Glassdoor. Companies are offering six-figure salaries to vie for top data science talent (the mean salary for data scientists is $108,660, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics).

And ambitious students have enrolled in New College’s Applied Data Science graduate program from across the globe, pursuing data science as a lucrative pathway to begin solving the planet’s greatest problems— from improving transportation to creating cancer treatments.

New College’s program blends interdisciplinary theory and practical skill application through courses such as “Exploratory Data Analysis,” “Applied Statistics” and “Data Visualization.” Undergraduates at New College can combine their primary major with a secondary focus in applied data science to earn both a data science bachelor of arts (B.A.) and master of science (M.S.) degree in five years, instead of the usual six.

The career outcomes for New College’s program are part of the appeal. In fact, every student from the Class of 2021 secured a full-time job in data science within one month of graduation. Those students gained experience applying both R and Python to develop solutions for corporate partners, all while cultivating the industry knowledge and technical skills to thrive after college.

“We plan to add more partnerships and industrial collaborations to our already highly affordable program to further increase the value we offer,” Bozkaya said.

For more information on the Applied Data Science graduate program at New College of Florida, visit ncf.edu/academics/graduate-program.

From YouTube, February 25, 2022

Students at New College of Florida’s Applied Data Science masters program joined the world-wide effort in analyzing data collected from cameras watching the night skies. Known as CAMS (Cameras for Allsky Meteor Surveillance), the effort is aimed at detecting meteors in the night sky through the use of data collected from multiple cameras watching night-time sky activity. Building on work initiated in 2017 by the Frontier Development Lab to automate the process and build a data processing pipleline, two student teams developed two new pipelines. What did they learn and how did they advance this project? 

From Medium. com, January 27, 2022

Have you ever looked up to a starry night sky, seen a shooting star and made a wish? I am sure you have. Well, look again and look carefully. Are you sure it is a shooting star, or could it be something else? Can you tell for sure? Well, maybe if your wish comes true, then you can tell with certainty that it was a shooting star, no? 🙂

This Fall semester at New College of Florida, 7 students* in the Applied Data Science master’s program joined the world-wide effort in analyzing data collected from cameras watching the night skies. Known as the CAMS project (Cameras for Allsky Meteor Surveillance), a NASA-sponsored initiative with the SETI Institute and under the leadership of Dr. Peter Jenniskens, the effort is aimed at detecting meteors in the night sky through the use of data collected from multiple cameras watching night-time sky activity. Since 2011, 19 locations worldwide have been launched to collect such data that are intended to help astronomers and researchers to detect meteors, calculate their orbit trajectories and trace their origins. Many researchers and data scientists have tackled to date the challenging task of analyzing these large datasets with the help of data science and machine learning techniques. But this process wasn’t always easy, in fact scientists had to travel to the camera locations, grab the video data, come back to their offices and spend hours in almost uneventful darkness watching the video footage to recognize meteors. in 2017 a team from Frontier Development Lab (FDL) automated this process and built an initial data processing pipeline. Since then the CAMS AI pipeline has been improved yearly, leading to 6x growth and now in 2021 a team from SpaceML improved the AI models precision and recall and built a portal to view meteor data from all over the world (more information here).

Read more here.

In the digital age, during a period of economic uncertainty and a global pandemic, the need for data scientists has never been greater.

And just when the world wants them most (data science was among LinkedIn’s top 15 in-demand jobs for 2021), these emerging innovators are getting their start at New College of Florida.

This fall, the College’s Master of Science in Applied Data Science program officially launched. The Board of Governors for the State University System of Florida approved the program back in March, nearly seven years after New College’s first graduate program was implemented.

Students have already enrolled from across the globe, pursuing data science as a lucrative pathway to begin solving the planet’s biggest problems— from creating cancer treatments to improving transportation.

“This is indeed exciting,” said Burcin Bozkaya, Ph.D., a New College professor of data science and the director of the Applied Data Science program. “The program has an increased focus on the ‘applied’ nature of data science. And one of the major points regarding the new program is a tighter collaboration and integration with the industry, as well as with the local community.”

The new two-year program, which consists of 36 credit hours spanning four semesters, blends interdisciplinary theory and practical skill application through courses such as “Exploratory Data Analysis,” “Applied Machine Learning” and “Data Visualization.” Students gain experience applying both R and Python to develop solutions for corporate partners, all while cultivating the industry knowledge and technical skills to thrive after college.

During the final semester, all students complete a paid, full-time practicum— either with one of New College’s partner companies or with another organization of their choice.

New Options, More Opportunities

Last spring, an advisory board— comprised of local, regional, and national executives and professionals— was created to further strengthen existing partnerships between New College and the data science industry.

A summer internship program, in addition to the usual spring practicum, was also added, along with industrial workshops, a seminar series, and project-based courses.

The current program allows undergraduates at New College in any area of concentration to combine their primary major with a secondary focus in applied data science, and to earn both a data science bachelor of arts (B.A.) and master of science (M.S.) degree.

“This 3+2 pathway allows any New College undergraduate in any area of concentration to complete their undergraduate and Applied Data Science Master of Science program in five years, instead of the usual six,” Bozkaya said.

Tiffany Washington, New College’s director of graduate enrollment and undergraduate strategic initiatives, leads recruitment efforts for the program. Growth is her top priority.

“I’m excited for what this program means for prospective students,” said Washington, who collaborates with Data Science Program Coordinator Nikita Bagley. “Now, master’s candidates gain even more hands-on experience through workshops and an additional internship component.”

Worldwide Appeal

Marina Sanchez, an international student from Spain who arrived at New College this fall, is one of the first attendees to experience the program’s new features.

She graduated from the Polytechnic University of Madrid in 2017 with a degree in telecommunication engineering and worked as a software engineer in the railway industry (developing security systems for trains).

“During those four years working in the railway sector, I became aware of the amount of useful data that is generated daily (and hardly ever stored or analyzed), which could be used to improve these security systems,” Sanchez said. “This is how my interest in data science started emerging and I decided to continue my studies in the field.”

New College’s graduate program intrigued her, she said, because of its combination of theoretical and practical content, as well as its small class sizes and one-on-one attention from faculty.

“I think that these small classes will give me the opportunity to know my colleagues and professors deeply, which I find essential for feeling like I’m part of a team where I can contribute and learn from others—feeling confident, supported and committed,” Sanchez said.

Sanchez looks forward to working with real datasets, meeting experts in the sector and completing a practicum— all of which will provide her with a “solid basis of knowledge and skills” to develop her professional career, she said.

“I’m sure that this master’s degree will give me the opportunity to deeply discover this science and its transversal applications, and will help me to choose the path I want to follow in my professional career—one that really suits my concerns and values,” Sanchez said. “Now that I have arrived at New College and have met my new colleagues, professors and staff, I am so excited to begin this challenging adventure with them. I have felt so welcome from the beginning, and I’m sure they will give me all the support and help I may need during this trip far from home.”

Sanchez is one of three international students in the Fall 2021 cohort. One- third of the cohort is female, and one- quarter is from abroad (representing countries such as Turkey and Brazil).

New College Professor of Mathematics Pat McDonald, Ph.D. initially designed the data science program alongside Associate Professor of Computer Science David Gillman, Ph.D. Bozkaya took the helm in August 2019.

There are currently eight faculty members—all from various disciplines, including statistics, computer science, mathematics, political science and bioinformatics.

Producing Top Talent

The post-graduate success rate in the master’s program speaks for itself.

“We are proud to say that our last cohort from the class of 2021 all secured full-time jobs in data science within one month of graduation,” Washington said. “Also, the median starting salary is $95,000 for data scientists.”

Behind this success is the integration of corporate partners, such as Novetta and the Allen Institute for Brain Science, with the academic program. These partnerships provide master’s program graduates with a competitive edge as they progress into the healthcare, environmental, public service, city planning and tech automation sectors.

“Our program is designed to prepare students to land their dream jobs as data scientists. It prepares students to use their experiences to chart their own career paths,” Washington said. “We are proud to see graduates successfully penetrating the sectors they desire to bring solutions to. This is why prospective students choose our program.”

Students like second-year Timothy McCormack, who plans to graduate in May, come from a variety of academic backgrounds. McCormack earned a bachelor’s degree in computer science and visual art from Wheaton College in Massachusetts before pursuing data science at New College.

He is now taking courses such as “Practical Data Science,” “Topics in Computing” and “Topics in Statistics.” He is also proficient in Python Programming, R, Javascript and Agile Software Development.

“I found out about the graduate program in data science from my brother, who is a New College data science alum, and I was initially drawn to the program for its technical content,” McCormack said. “Upon attending seminars and meeting the professors, I was convinced that this program would help me have a more meaningful career. I’m excited to use the expertise I’ve developed here at New College in developing software as a data scientist, and I hope to work in academia eventually.”

McCormack has already interned for a Dutch company in The Hague in the Netherlands—as a data science researcher, solving problems involving authenticity in art.

“I love tapping into technical creation. Whether it be Legos, biology or software, I have always loved studying systems,” McCormack said. “I hope that all people can find intrinsic motivation for the work that they do, because it makes life much brighter.” 

Bright Initiatives 

New College data science students and faculty researchers are regularly in the spotlight.

In May 2020, for example, they partnered with Riff Analytics (a Boston, Massachusetts-based tech company, born from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Media Lab) to research ways to improve virtual communication in online platforms.

This was earlier in the COVID-19 pandemic, when teleconferences and other forms of remote exchanges were rapidly becoming the new norms.

“Riff is a small company that analyzes group and team communications, and they try to find signals that they think are relevant for predicting group performance,” Bozkaya said. “For teams to be productive or reach their deliverables, they have to communicate effectively. This company is taking it to the digital communication world.”

In essence, Riff Analytics (a 2017-founded startup run by CEO Beth Porter) uses vocal data to model human interactions in video meetings and text chats, showing how individuals and teams interact when they collaborate. Riff Metrics then give insights on engagement, dominance, influence, interruption and flow.

Over time, people become more aware of their impact on others in team settings, and they use Riff feedback to change their behaviors and become more effective contributors. Porter was thrilled to find a team at New College to help enhance Riff’s model.

“New College is like this little hidden gem in the university system. It’s not a brand name like MIT or Harvard, but it’s full of such high-quality, incredibly intelligent people. Finding that pocket of excellence is just wonderful,” said Porter, who met Bozkaya while the two were both fellows in the MIT Media Lab. “At Riff, we engage in our own research, and we want to talk to (and work with) people who we think can add value to our grants.”

Riff has its own proprietary video and text-based chat platforms (teaching and learning programs), and the company is hoping to become a leading fixture in the industry. Porter has been involved in the study and practice of remote team management for two decades and, when the pandemic came into the picture, her research became more relevant than ever.

She knew Bozkaya would be a stellar collaborator, and he enlisted two of his students for the research: Andrew Reilly and Austin Anderson, who have since graduated.

“We wanted a smart, thoughtful group of people to work with so that we would have a good, robust, research- backed, sound set of principles going into our product design,” Porter said. “Andrew had a background in sociology/psychology and Austin had a background in voice analysis, which is exactly what we do. Those people are really hard to find.”

New College researchers helped develop new approaches for understanding the dynamics of human behavior in group conversations—such as online classrooms—for Riff to use in its products.

“Hopefully, it will have an impact,” Bozkaya said. “If this is becoming more the norm, I think there have to be studies developed like this one.”

The New College Foundation was proud to provide grant funding for this initiative.

“I’m excited to see our data science program give our students opportunities in real-life projects which are at the forefront of the field,” said Mary Anne Young, the executive director of the Foundation. “The Riff Analytics gift makes possible the involvement of New College students in the cutting-edge telecommunication sphere. The Foundation is delighted to be involved in making such opportunities available.”

Global Citizens

As the Applied Data Science program grows, the enrollment team is keeping its eyes on representation and recruiting diverse talent.

Because of strategic initiatives aimed at bringing in global students, the 2020 and 2021 cohorts were more inclusive than they had ever been.

“It’s quite refreshing to see our students be so different and work together so well,” Washington said. “Seeing students of different genders, backgrounds and areas of study come together and find similarities is such a breath of fresh air.”

Diversifying the student body is a priority for New College as a whole. To this end, Washington has already started developing strategic advertising campaigns and coordinated personalized campus visits. She has found ways to reach students and alumni of historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs), Latinos in tech organizations, female technology groups and international students.

“We’re making sure our students are not only prepared to tackle what they need
to learn in data science, but that they’re gaining the skills to work cohesively with a team of people who don’t necessarily look or think like them,” Washington said. “What we really value in our program is preparing students for the sector they wish to go into when they graduate.”

To read the entire Fall 2021 issue of Nimbus, visit issuu.com/newcol/docs/newcollege_nimbus89-fall_f_121521.

Abby Weingarten is the senior editor in the Office of Communications & Marketing.

From WUSF News, December 28, 2021

Using massive amounts of anonymous public data, New College’s Applied Data Science students are working with Community Foundation of Sarasota County to build a tool to help decision-makers find out what the community needs.

A new data-centric initiative has been established between New College of Florida and the Community Foundation of Sarasota County to share community trends and enhance the work of graduate-level professional students.

The “Community Indicators Project” is an emerging data dashboard that harnesses the measurements of health, education, human services, arts and culture, and environmental factors to gain a more timely and thorough assessment of quality of life—both as a region, and at the neighborhood level. This cloud-based, open-source tool designed by New College students will be available to the public and used by the Community Foundation to consider how charitable giving can positively affect areas of need or concern. The dashboard will be available to the public in Spring 2022.

This multi-year initiative came from a pilot project that began during the pandemic to allow students in New College’s Master’s in Applied Data Science Program to gain real-world experience, while improving the Community Foundation’s understanding of evolving community needs through expertise in data science modeling and analysis.

“This is a great a collaboration between New College and the Community Foundation. The professional positions offered to our students provide real-world use of the skills they are building,” said Burcin Bozkaya, Ph.D., the director of the Applied Data Science Program at New College. “Additionally, by providing a publicly-accessible, cloud-based tool that others can use, students, teachers and leaders across our region will have the latest data to inform decisions large and small.”

The concept for the dashboard first took shape when the two organizations developed baseline reports about area-wide philanthropic trends, alongside key measurements of health, education, arts and civic participation.

“Data gives us the opportunity to better understand the people we call our neighbors, colleagues and friends,” said Ranata Reeder, the vice president of Knowledge and Equity at the Community Foundation, noting that the two organizations have been partners since 1994. “Through this partnership, we hope to engage students and show how they are active, forward-thinking participants in their community by applying their skills to catalyze conversations around local needs and promote equity.”

Hands-on, practical application of data science—outside the classroom—takes students’ skills to the next level, Bozkaya said.

“New College students are regularly working on important projects each semester as part of their coursework, like in their ‘Practical Data Science’ course, or outside the classroom like with this project for the Community Foundation,” Bozkaya said. “Our students will have the opportunity this fall to work under the guidance provided by the Knowledge and Equity Department at the Community Foundation, which will be continued in the spring as one student’s practicum.”

As New College interns succeed in discovering population trends that can be acted upon by community leaders, those community leaders can (through data) make better-informed decisions and policy changes.

The Community Foundation’s 41-year history of investing charitable dollars to address community needs will be enriched by the thoughtful application of big data. The organization’s first foray into applying data to better understand the nonprofit community began in 2012 with the launch of The Giving Partner, an online resource detailing the goals, successes and operations of more than 700 nonprofit organizations serving Sarasota, Manatee, DeSoto and Charlotte counties.

As Reeder said, “Through the ongoing assessment of key social determinants of health and well-being, Community Foundation board members, staff, donors and nonprofit partners will have even greater knowhow, guidance and resources thanks to these New College interns who are eager to use data for good.”

For more information on the Community Foundation of Sarasota County, visit cfsarasota.org.

For more information on the Applied Data Science Program at New College of Florida, visit ncf.edu/academics/graduate-program.

Abby Weingarten is the senior editor in the Office of Communications & Marketing.