By Michael Sweeney “How do we give members an opportunity to learn and grow and still get that professional experience they need?” Eshan Velidandla, a sophomore in Information Science + Data Science, asked himself when laying the groundwork for a new data science-focused club. Now president of the Data Science Development Group or DSDG, Velidandla […]
Author: ms98@illinois.edu
38 video clips, 2,000 image frames, 22,000 pig instances, and a hopeful future for livestock. This is the PigLife data set, under AIFARMS, one of the AI research institutes supported by the National Science Foundation and the USDA. It’s a first-of-its-kind benchmark made to train computer vision (CV) systems on pig tracking, furnishing the agricultural […]
2026 Datathon Winners Predict Call Center Activity Using No AI
Understanding the data completely— a skill becoming more and more important with AI— along with storytelling and simplicity differentiated the winners of this year’s Statistics Datathon. By Michael Sweeney The 10th anniversary of the Illinois Statistics Datathon is in the books. Nearly 600 students across more than 200 teams hailing from the Department of Statistics, the […]
Illini to the Final Four… of Brackets
*UPDATE*: After a crushing Illini loss and the end to the men’s college basketball season UIUC BracketOdds’ top bracket in this set, #15,458,212 outscored all ESPN brackets, correctly predicting 57 of the 63 games and scoring 1,840 points! This year, users submitted a record 26,567,887 men’s basketball brackets on ESPN. While the initially they generated […]
Materials Science and Engineering teams up with Data Science at Illinois, innovates in Research and Teaching
By Michael Sweeney Materials science and data science are converging fast, democratizing materials research, minimizing human bias, and the University of Illinois is reacting accordingly. Professors Pinshane Huang and Dallas Trinkle walk us through how the combination of the sciences is revolutionizing the industry and how students can get in on the action. Materials science […]
iDSC Data Dive Showcases a Semester of Learning, Professionalism
By Michael Sweeney The Illinois Data Science Club’s Fall 2025 Data Dive competition came to a close on December 7 after a week of preliminary rounds and final presentations in an already busy time of the year. “This is definitely the highest quality set of projects I’ve ever seen,” said Illinois senior and Data Dive […]
2025 Ashby Prize in Computational Science Hackathon Winners streamline CRISPR Screening with AI
By Michael Sweeney *Results listed at the bottom CRISPR-Cas systems have revolutionized biology by allowing researchers to investigate how genes function. However, running CRISPR screens can exceed $10,000 per experiment and take months. Following a weekend of intense computation, the winners of this year’s Ashby Prize Hackathon made a step toward a smoother, less expensive […]
Inside the Illinois Data Science Club
By Michael Sweeney We sat down with a first-of-its-kind club at the University of Illinois, the Illinois Data Science Club. The organization tackles the fast-growing field with data competitions and learning experiences for everyone. From 2016 to 2026, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics projected a 27.9% increase in data science-related occupations, and the University […]
Weathering the Storm: An Atmospheric Scientist on Technology, Disruption, and Dedication
By Michael Sweeney As an assistant professor of climate, meteorology, and atmospheric sciences, and leader of the Climate Modeling, Prediction, and Applications research group (C-MPA), Dr. Gan Zhang is dedicated to investigating weather extremes and their impacts using a wide range of datasets and machine learning tools. In this article, Zhang shares his experiences and […]
Making Campus Data Work: A Conversation with Maryalice Wu
By Francie Fink As Director of Data Analytics at the Center for Innovation in Teaching and Learning (CITL) at the University of Illinois, Dr. Maryalice Wu brings years of experience in survey design, student success research, and statistical consulting. In this conversation, she discusses how she got started, what data analytics means in an academic […]