Call for Faculty Participation. September 2020.

The Data Science Institute is calling for faculty submissions of research projects for the Fall 2020 session of Data Science Institute (DSI) Scholars Program. The goal of the DSI Scholars Program is to engage undergraduate and master students to work with Columbia faculty, through the creation of data science research internships. Last year, we worked with 42 projects and received more than 730 unique applications from Columbia Students. The program’s unique enrichment activities foster a learning and collaborative community in data science at Columbia. Apply here.

  • Funding support: For selected projects, the DSI will provide matching funds of up to $2,500 per project for internship-supporting stipends. Approximately 20 such stipend funds will be awarded over the course of the year. Allocation of funds will be made via a first-come-first-serve need-based process, with efforts to balance allocation across disciplines and support novel interdisciplinary research.

  • Administrative support: The DSI will collect faculty-submitted internship positions and create an umbrella application page to solicit student applications. The collected applications for each position will be compiled and sent to the hosting faculty/center/lab for review. The faculty/center/lab will then review, identify and notify the Scholars for their own projects. Funded projects will receive additional support through the coordination of stipends with Student Financial services.

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

    • Bootcamps on Data Science Research Skills - During the first weeks of summer 2021, we will run bootcamps on data science research skills. All students who have been selected for a DSI Scholars project (receiving matching funds or not) are especially encouraged to attend, with additional seats available for other interested applicants.
    • Scholars in Data Science meetup series - Throughout this series, we will provide Scholars opportunities to learn about data science research outside their own project and a community of peer student researchers. 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.
    • Annual Research Poster Session: All DSI Scholars (receiving matching funds or not) will be invited to present their research during a DSI poster session at DSI Town Hall in the fall 2020 semester.

Questions? See our FAQ! A video recording from an online information session can be found here, and slides from the same event can be found here. You can also contact us at dsi-scholars@columbia.edu.

The Data Science Institute encourages 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 should complete this application form. The application deadline is September 4th, 2020. Decisions on the allocation of funds will be made by September 8th, 2020.

Key dates:

  • September 4th, 2020
    • [Faculty -> DSI] Faculty/Center/Lab scholars internship host application due.
  • September 8th, 2020
    • [DSI -> Faculty] DSI Scholars funding decisions will be sent to faculty.
    • [DSI -> Students] Program announcement will be sent to students and the application website goes live.
  • October 1st, 2020
    • [Students -> DSI] Student applications due.
    • [DSI -> Faculty] Applications shared with faculty/center/lab.
  • October 1st-October 23rd, 2020
    • [Faculty -> Students] Student interviews and selection.
  • October 23rd, 2020
    • [Faculty -> Student] Faculty sends an email offer of the internship to the selected student(s).
    • [Faculty -> DSI] Information on selected Scholars due to DSI for inclusion in fall stipend.

Please email questions to dsi-scholars@columbia.edu, see our FAQ, or register for an info session on August 24th (9:00am, 3:00pm).