CSUSB students presented at the 11th annual IEEE International Conference on Data Science and Advanced Analytics (DSAA) in San Diego with Nathan Kelly, alumnus and current computer science graduate student, earning the Best Student Poster Presentation Award. The conference is the premier data science forum that brings together researchers, industry and government practitioners, and end-users of big data for discussion and exchange of original findings, state-of-the-art achievements, and best practices.

This year, the conference consisted of workshops, presentations, networking opportunities and engaging keynote addresses. Additionally, there was a student forum that gave undergraduate and graduate students the opportunity to showcase their research and be evaluated by their peers.

Kelly earned top honors and was selected out of more than 40 participants for his project, “A Deep Learning Approach to Sheep Segmentation and Activity Classification Utilizing U-Net and Long Short Term Memory Models.”  In addition to Kelly, CSUSB students Alexis Luevanos, Vamsi Sivakavi and Calvin Glisson presented their research and were awarded a travel grant at the conference, held Oct. 6-10.

"We are proud of our students' achievements and the growing impact of our data science programs," said Sastry Pantula, dean for the College of Natural Sciences. "Their success at DSAA 2024 demonstrates the quality of research and education we provide at CSUSB."

The conference marks the end of the Data Science Career Pathways in the Inland Empire Project (DS-PATH), funded by a $1.5 million, three-year National Science Foundation grant. The DS-PATH Project has supported more than 30 undergraduate students' research and helped build the new data science degree programs at CSUSB, including a minor and a certificate in data science.

The DS-PATH Project prepared the next generation of data scientist in the Inland Empire and creating career pathways.

But that doesn’t mean that such pathways are gone.

"We're thrilled to announce that we've recently received approval from the CSU Chancellor's Office to develop a new B.S. in data science,” said Yunfei Hou, professor of computer science and engineering and CSUSB’s principal investigator of the DS-PATH Project. “This program will further enhance (CSUSB’s) offerings and prepare students for the growing demands of the field.”

CSUSB is part of a collaborative effort to advance data science education and increase accessibility into the field with new pathways.

A grant from the California Learning Lab funds the partnership between CSUSB and the University of California, Riverside; California State Polytechnic University, Pomona; Chaffey College; Pasadena City College; Moreno Valley College; Riverside City College; and Norco College.

Together, they have received a $1.275 million, four-year grant to develop data science programs. CSUSB and the partnering institutions will lead the project Greater LA Data Science Pathways. 

The California Learning Lab grant will also help CSUSB develop the new undergraduate program in data science, which will be a joint program between the School of Computer Science and Department of Mathematics.

In addition to Hou, the project team at CSUSB includes Jeremy Aikin, professor of mathematics; Hani Aldirawi, assistant professor of mathematics; Ronald Salloum, associate professor of computer science and engineering; and Qingquan Sun, professor of computer science and engineering.

The undergraduate data science program is in the planning stage, and the project team plans to engage with departments to contribute to the data science major, aiming to enhance its interdisciplinary nature and create a robust, inclusive program.