Call for Faculty Participation. December 2017.

The Data Science Institute is pleased to announce the launch of the Data Science Institute (DSI) Scholars Program for the Inaugural Class of Summer 2018. The goal of the DSI Scholars Program is to engage undergraduate and master students to work with Columbia faculty through a data science research internship. The program’s unique enrichment activities will foster a learning and collaborative community in data science at Columbia.

  • Funding support: For Summer 2018, the DSI will support faculty by matching the stipend for selected scholars up to $2,500 each. Approximately 15 matching funds will be awarded. In special cases, additional funding is available to fund fully the cost of the stipend (up to $5,000). Allocation of funds will be made via a first-come-first-serve need-based process, with an effort to balance allocation across disciplines and to support novel interdisciplinary research.

  • Administrative support: The DSI education committee will collect submitted internship positions and create an umbrella application page to collect student applications. The collected applications for each position will be sent to the hosting faculty/center/lab for review. The faculty/center/lab will review and identify the Scholars they prefer for their own projects.

  • Intellectual support via the DSI Scholars enrichment activities: The DSI education committee will organize the following enrichment activities for the DSI Scholars Program.

    • Initiation Bootcamp on Data Science skills - During the first week of the summer 2018 internships, we will run an Initiation Bootcamp on data science skills. All DSI Scholars (receiving matching fund or not) are encouraged to attend.

    • Scholars in Data Science weekly meetup series - Throughout the summer, this weekly series will provide Scholars the opportunities to learn about data science research outside their own project. Each session will be led by a data scientist at Columbia and will consist of a 45-minute seminar talk and a 45-minute hands-on activity.

    • Fall Research Poster Session: All DSI Scholars (receiving matching funds or not) will be invited to present their summer research during a DSI poster session at the beginning of the fall semester 2018.

The Data Science Institute will encourage women and underrepresented minorities to apply to this program.

Application to participate: Faculty/Research Centers/Research Labs who are interested in participating in this program as internship hosts must complete the application form. The application deadline is January 10, 2018. Decisions on the allocation of funds will be made by January 15, 2018.

Key dates:

  • January 10, 2018
    • [Faculty -> DSI] Faculty/Center/Lab scholars internship host application due.
  • January 15, 2018
    • [DSI -> Faculty] DSI Scholars funding decisions will be sent to faculty.
    • [DSI -> Students] Program announcement will be sent to students and application website goes live.
  • February 15, 2018
    • [Students -> DSI] Student applications due.
    • [DSI -> Faculty] Applications shared with faculty/center/lab
  • March 15, 2018
    • [Faculty ->DSI] Information of identified Scholars due to DSI
    • [Faculty -> Student] Email offers of internship will be sent to students.

Please email questions to dsi-scholars@columbia.edu.