Data Science Updates is the University of Wisconsin-Madison's resource for news, training, events, and professional opportunities in data science, brought to you by the Data Science Institute, powered by American Family Insurance, and the Data Science Hub.
March 6, 2024
|
|
|
|
Introduction to Text Analysis Workshop
Online, April 15-17, 2024 8:30 am - 12:30 pm. Join this recently developed Carpentries workshop for a practical Introduction to Text Analysis, designed for those with Python experience (how to create functions, for loops, conditional logic, use the pandas library, etc.). The workshop covers Natural Language Processing (NLP) basics, API usage, data preparation, document/word embeddings, topic modeling, Word2Vec, Transformer models using Hugging Face, and ethical considerations. Students and researchers working in the digital humanities are especially encouraged to attend! Register for Intro to Text Analysis here, and complete the short pre-workshop survey at your earliest convenience.
|
|
|
|
Steve Wright Elected to National Academy of Engineering
Steve Wright, Chair of the UW-Madison Computer Sciences Department, was recently elected to the National Academy of Engineering. Wright is honored for his work on the theory and design of optimization algorithms and their application in signal processing and machine learning. Election to the National Academy of Engineering is among the highest professional distinctions accorded to an engineer. Congratulations, Steve!
|
|
|
|
Data Science Hub 2023 Impact Report
The Data Science Hub is proud of their impact in 2023. Throughout the year, the Hub worked hard to provide data science training and implementation across campus. Below are some highlights.
Coding Meetup
Through Coding Meetup, they helped and collaborated with many campus researchers, seeing a 26% increase in unique attendees.
Workshops
The Hub organized and instructed 13 workshops in 2023 to help others reproducibly analyze, visualize, model, and gain insights from data, seeing a rebound in post-pandemic attendance with a 34% increase in ticket sales from 2021. The Hub additionally pioneered new workshops such as High Dimensional Data Analysis and Intermediate Research Software Development, broadening the opportunities for researchers to improve their data science skills.
Community
The Hub hosts several data science communities, including ML+X, EVIL, ComBEE, and the Carpentries Instructional Community, all of which saw a sharp increase in new members. Notably, ML+X acquired new sponsorships in 2023 that will further drive growth and innovation into this and future years. EVIL and ComBEE were both revived in 2023 and are prospering.
Read more about the Hub’s impact, including a message from the director (Sarah Stevens), featured engagements with researchers, the 2023 Research Bazaar, and newsletter statistics in the published report.
|
Open Source Program Office Seeks Communications Intern
The Open Source Program Office in the Data Science Institute is hiring an undergraduate summer intern to assist with outreach and communications. If you have a passion for communicating science and technology, this could be the internship for you! While open-source experience is not required, a background in journalism, life sciences communication, technical communication, or education is preferred. Applications are due March 24. View the position description and application information on the student jobs website.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Generative AI Workshop with Google Cloud
March 8 and 12, Online & In-Person at the Computer Science Building (DoIT Room 3138A CS), Google innovation. Enterprise approach. GenAI tools being leveraged in secure, enterprise focused ways. Explore with Research Cyberinfrastructure how you can align on a strategic, campus wide approach to securely creating outcomes with GenAI. At this half-day workshop, you will learn about Google Generative AI from Google and UW-Madison Experts. View the agenda, register, and access the Zoom link at the event webpage.
|
Workshop Series: Methods for Biological Data
February through May, Dr. Claudia Solis-Lemus and Dr. Emile Gluck-Thaler from Plant Pathology are hosting the workshop series "Methods for Biological Data" for Spring 2024. This interactive workshop will help students and postdocs engage with new methods for analyzing their data. All students and postdocs are welcome!
The workshops will take place on the first Wednesday of the next four months from 2-3:30 p.m. in 584 Ruseell Labs (Feb 7, March 6th, April 3, May 1st). Local and virtual speakers will be invited to demo new statistical and bioinformatic methods with opportunities for students/postdocs to try out the methods in real-time on their data.
|
Workshop Series: Python and R Programming Languages for Data Analysis
February and March, Learn programming skills for computational research during the R workshop series and the Python workshop series. Attend any or all of the sessions. Brought to you as a part of the UW Libraries Graduate Support workshop series. Open to all UW-Madison students, faculty, and staff. Location: Instruction online via Zoom with in-person help at satellite locations for some workshops.
|
Next Generation Data Analysis Workshops
March and April, The Bioinformatics Resource Core (BRC) at the UW Biotechnology Center ( UWBC) is offering heavily hands-on workshops on Next-Generation Sequencing (NGS) Data Analysis skills:
- Access and analyze data with bash command line
- SNP and RNA-Seq analysis examples with open-source software on a Linuxplatform
These day-long workshops are in-person sessions and do have a fee associated with them. Read workshops descriptions, access registration links, and view the calendar at the Bioinformatics website.
|
|
|
|
Have questions about anything data science-related? Come see the Data Science Hub facilitators at Coding Meetup on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 2:30-4:30 p.m. CT. To join Coding Meetup, join data-science-hubgroup.slack.com.
|
|
|
|
Earning Guided Quazi-newton Methods: Improved Global Non-asymtotic Guarantees
March 6, 12:30 – 1:30 pm, Wisconsin Institute for Discovery, Orchard room 3280 and on Zoom, Aryan Mokhtari from the University of Texas at Austin will discuss the innovative quasi-Newton methods designed to overcome the limitations of traditional optimization techniques, showcasing their globally superior convergence rates and practical applications in computational optimization.
Abstract: Quasi-Newton (QN) methods are popular iterative algorithms known for their superior practical performance compared to Gradient Descent (GD)-type methods. However, the existing theoretical results for this class of algorithms do not sufficiently justify their advantage over GD-type methods. Specifically, in the strongly convex setting, where GD-type methods converge globally at a linear rate, the global convergence guarantees for QN methods are no better than those for GD. While there are results that demonstrate a faster superlinear convergence rate for QN methods, they are either “asymptotic” or “local” and fail to provide a global iteration complexity superior to that of GD-type methods. Similarly, in the convex setting, the convergence guarantees for QN methods only match the sublinear rate of GD-type methods and do not exhibit any form of speed-up.
In his talk, Assistant Professor Aryan Mokhtari discusses recent efforts to address these limitations. In the strongly convex setting, he proposes the first globally convergent QN method that achieves an explicit non-asymptotic superlinear rate. It is shown that the rate presented for his method is provably faster than GD after at most O(d) iterations, where d is the problem dimension. Additionally, in the convex setting, he presents an accelerated variant of the proposed method that provably outperforms the accelerated gradient method and converges at a rate of O(min{1/k^2, sqrt(d log k)/k^2.5}), where k is the number of iterations. To attain these results, Assistant Professor Aryan Mokhtari diverges from conventional approaches and constructs QN methods based on the Hybrid Proximal Extragradient (HPE) framework and its accelerated variants. Furthermore, a pivotal algorithmic concept underpinning his methodologies is an online learning framework for updating the Hessian approximation matrices. Specifically, he relates his method's convergence rate to the regret of a specific online convex optimization problem in the matrix space and chooses the sequence of Hessian approximation matrices to minimize its overall regret.
|
posit::conf(2024)
August 21-24, Seattle & Limited Online, Whether you’re just starting your data science journey, a skilled professional, or a data science leader, posit::conf(2024) has it all, with four talk tracks, community events, updates on product enhancements, all-day workshops, and keynotes from your favorite data scientists. Learn more and register by March 21 for posit::conf(2024).
|
Data Science for Social Good
Why Apply?
- Real-world projects
- Cutting-edge data science
- Robust support structure
- Motivated team members
- Mentoring relationships
- Seattle summer (it’s amazing, FYI)
Applications are now open for our 2024 program. Accepting applications for:
- Student Fellows: Student Fellows Application - Open until 11:59 PST, February 12th
- Project Proposals: Community Project Proposal Submissions - Open until 11:59 PST, February 20th
|
|
|
|
|
EVIL in Spring 2024
March 8, 10:00 a.m. - 11:00 a.m., The Ethics, Values, Information, and Law (EVIL) reading group pursues scholarship in the intersections of ethics, law, and data and information technologies. The EVIL Reading group meets every three weeks (roughly), Fridays, online, and is hosted in collaboration with the iSchool and ML+X. This meeting discusses " New tools help artists fight AI by directly disrupting the systems" and " Glaze: Protecting Artists from Style Mimicry by Text-to-Image Models". Learn more about the community and how to attend the meeting at the EVIL website.
|
|
|
|
|
PROFESSIONAL
|
Neuroimaging Research Analyst
Apply by March 8 – The School of Medicine and Public Health seeks applicants with a STEM Bachelor's for analyzing neuroimaging datasets, full or part-time.
Requirements include experience with Flywheel, neuroimaging software (e.g., SPM12, FSL, ITK-SNAP), managing Freesurfer data, and supporting NIH grants and IRB applications, with co-authoring abstracts.
Ideal candidates should have MRI, DTI, fMRI data analysis experience, and experience with interdisciplinary teams. Responsibilities: Data analysis and summarization, manuscript preparation, serving as a contact for inquiries, and managing PAC and Flywheel data
Salary starts at $50,000. For more details and to apply, visit the job posting.
|
|
|
|
|
STUDENT
|
CDC High-Obesity Program Evaluation Student Hourly
Apply by March 8 – The Division of Extension Health & Well-Being Institute is seeking a student for a part-time position to support the Center for Disease Control's High Obesity Program grant. The role involves data entry, survey management, and analysis, emphasizing collaboration with partners to promote healthy eating and active living in Menominee County/Nation and Ashland County.
Ideal candidates have experience or a keen interest in data management, the ability to work with diverse populations, and a particular understanding of Tribal communities. This position offers the opportunity to contribute to significant policy, systems, and environmental strategies aimed at improving community health outcomes.
The role is based at the UW-Division of Extension, with expected travel to Menominee and Ashland Counties for onsite work. Learn more here.
|
Research Cyberinfrastructure Project Assistant
Apply by March 13 – The Office of Research Cyberinfrastructure within DoIT (Division of Information Technology) at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, is hiring a graduate student Project Assistant (33.3%) to provide administrative and analytical support for services within Research Cyberinfrastructure (RCI) including ResearchDrive, Cloud Platforms, Electronic Lab Notebooks (ELN) and data science platform services.
Qualified applicants must have experience with data analysis and visualization. This position is appropriate for graduate students from a wide variety of disciplinary areas.
|
|
|
|
DATA VISUALIZATION OF THE WEEK
|
|
|
|
Reposted from the Data Science Community Newsletter, an Academic Data Science Alliance project
|
|
|
|
|
The Academic Data Science Alliance (ADSA) is a network of academic data science practitioners, educators, and leaders, and academic-adjacent colleagues, who thoughtfully integrate data science best practices in higher education. UW-Madison is a founding member of ADSA.
|
|
|
|
Data Science Updates is a collaborative effort of the Data Science Institute and Data Science Hub.
Use our submission form to send us your news, events, opportunities and data visualizations for future issues.
|
|
|
|
|
