COSAM News Articles 2022 October COSAM’s Department of Mathematics and Statistics offers a new graduate certificate program in data science

COSAM’s Department of Mathematics and Statistics offers a new graduate certificate program in data science

Published: 10/04/2022

By: Leslie Leak

In 2019, the Department of Mathematics and Statistics in the College of Sciences and Mathematics joined forces with the Department of Computer Science and Software Engineering in the Samuel Ginn College of Engineering to launch a joint master’s program in data science and engineering (MS-DSE). The program has two tracks: data science managed by the Department of Mathematics and Statistics and data engineering managed by the Department of Computer Science and Software Engineering. The program is designed to educate and train professionals in the analysis of big data and to give them the necessary tools for a successful career in this rapidly growing field. It is also aimed at educating students to meet the demand for data scientists in government, industry and academia and to develop data scientists with skills to innovate in the spaces of advanced data management and analytics.

Enrollment in the MS-DSE program has increased substantially over the past couple of years. To accommodate the swelling demand, in 2021, the program introduced an online master’s in data science and engineering, again with the same two tracks. Finally, the Department of Mathematics and Statistics launched a graduate certificate program in data science (GCRT-DSCI) this semester. Graduates of the GCRT-DSCI program will be trained for a variety of jobs including data analyst and data scientist.

Students wanting to acquire a graduate certificate in data science must complete a total of 12 graduate credit hours, which include three required statistics courses: Intermediate Statistical Methods for Data Science, Probability and Statistics for Data Science, and Statistical Learning along with one COMP elective in Database Systems, Data Mining or Machine Learning. If a student chooses to pursue a master’s degree, all academic credit earned from the graduate certificate may be applied toward the graduate degree.

“The Department of Mathematics and Statistics has been very intentional about developing its research and instructional capabilities in data science,” said Ash Abebe, professor and chair of the Department of Mathematics and Statistics. “This spans the entire spectrum of areas in data science from fundamental data science to applied data science. Our students graduate with the depth and breadth of knowledge required to succeed in both academia and industry.”

“The graduate certificate in data science will be extremely useful for every graduate student and professional who works with data and aims at creating better solutions for problems in their field,” said Nedret Billor, professor and coordinator of statistics and data science programs.

For more information on the data science graduate certificate, download the flyer or contact Nedret Billor at billone@auburn.edu.