Data Science
- Department Interdisciplinary
- Academic Division The College
- Offerings Minor
We live in a world increasingly driven by data. Data science is a rapidly expanding, multidisciplinary field that draws on statistics, computer science and math, with applications in a wide variety of academic disciplines and industries. We extract meaning from data to learn more about the world and society.
Data Science
The data science minor allows students to complement discipline-specific skills and knowledge with a deeper understanding of how to analyze and extract meaning from data to learn more about the world, society and their discipline. We prepare students to be excellent data analysts in their major disciplines and to be prepared to effectively work with data after graduation. Students:
- Collect and analyze data in a reproducible and ethically responsible manner
- Obtain data through searching, scraping, mining or experimental methods
- Parse, transform and generate wide-ranging data sets for analysis
- Statistically analyze data to summarize, draw inferences and make predictions
- Identify patterns and relationships in datasets using visualization and algorithms
- Communicate data methods and conclusions to diverse audiences
Students trained in data science can apply their skills in a wide variety of ways including serving as central operations manager at Uber (Holley Beasley ’15), working as executive vice president at Microstrategy (Rich Cober ’96), and serving as head of industry at Google (Ames McArdle ’02).
DataCon
W&L hosts DataCon, where people from all corners of industry come to discuss the impacts of data science on industry and the world. Students from all over the university, from biology to sociology to business, participate in the Data Science Program to learn from each other and discover how to ethically learn from data.
What’s Next for Marshall Wilt ’26
Wilt is working in wealth management at J.P. Morgan Private Bank in Atlanta.
W&L’s Sarp Sahin ’26 Earns Fulbright Cardiff University Award
Sahin will continue his research of Parkinson’s disease at Cardiff University in Wales before attending medical school.
Three W&L Students Awarded Boren Scholarships for Global Language Study
With the scholarship, the graduating seniors will conduct intensive language studies in Indonesia and Japan.
W&L’s Sarp Sahin ’26 named ODK National Leader of the Year in Academics and Research
Sahin’s award will support his graduate studies at Cardiff University as a Fulbright scholar.
W&L’s Sandrine Uwantege ’27 Receives Davis Projects for Peace Grant
The grant will support Uwantege’s work to empower and expand opportunities for first-time teenage mothers in her home country of Rwanda.
Ammar Alhajmee ’26 to Receive the Global Learning Leadership Award
The accounting and German double major from Iraq will be presented with the award at the Center for International Education awards ceremony on May 26.
W&L’s Patrick Solcher Awarded Fulbright to Spain
For Solcher, teaching English in Spain is an opportunity to meaningfully immerse himself in a new culture and continue building his language skills.
Meet Toluwalope Bakare ’28
Bakare and her friends started a club on campus to celebrate African culture through dance.
Career Connections
The W&L network is perhaps most illustrative in the early-career assistance and opportunities our alumni provide to current students.
Jon Eastwood to Deliver Lecture in Honor of His Appointment to the William P. Ames Jr. Professorship in Sociology
Eastwood’s talk, titled “Reflections on the Sociology of Cynicism and Distrust,” will be held Feb. 19 in Northen Auditorium.
Meet Reagan Reiferson ’26
Reiferson has found her “homes” on campus in her sorority and the Outing Club.
Meet the Faculty
At W&L, students enjoy small classes and close relationships with professors who educate and nurture.
Gregg Whitworth
Associate Professor of Biology, Data Science Program Head
Whitworth’s courses include Data Science: Visualizing and Exploring Big Data and The Molecular Mechanics of Life.
Jonathan Eastwood
Department Head, Sociology and Anthropology; Professor of Sociology
Professor Eastwood is a social theorist who also has a strong interest in quantitative methods. He teaches seminars on classical and contemporary theory as well as a series of courses that train students how to use quantitative and computational tools to answer sociological questions.
Bright Frimpong
Assistant Professor of Business Administration
Lingshu Hu
Assistant Professor of Business Administration
- P: 540-458-8383
- E: lhu@wlu.edu
With a PhD in journalism focusing on computational methods and a graduate certificate in AI and Machine Learning, Professor Hu’s primary teaching interests include making data analytics accessible to students in the social sciences and helping students master storytelling skills with data analytics and visualization.
Dan Johnson
Professor of Cognitive and Behavioral Science
Johnson’s courses include Psychology Mythbusters and Introduction to Data Science: Mind Analytics. His lab uses computational models and empirical data to investigate the mechanisms underlying creativity processes like the generation of novel ideas.
Keri M. Larson
Associate Professor of Business Administration
- P: 540-458-8601
- E: larsonk@wlu.edu
Larson teaches courses that help students learn to understand and use data in areas of management. She has researched the analytics of unstructured textual data to support organizational decision making.
David Marsh
Professor of Biology
- P: 540-458-8176
- E: marshd@wlu.edu
Marsh teaches Intro to Behavioral Ecology, Microbiome, Field Herpetology, Animal Behavior and Statistics for Biology and Medicine. His research includes effects of climate change on endemic mountaintop salamanders, effects of roads and land use on frog and toad populations across the Eastern and central U.S., and population dynamics of terrestrial salamanders.
Sybil Prince Nelson
Associate Professor of Mathematics
Prince Nelson ’01 teaches courses in calculus, probability and statistics. Her research is focused on creating tree-based models for classifying and predicting outcomes from complex data.
Sarah Petersen
Assistant Professor of Mathematics and Data Science
Petersen teaches a variety of mathematics and data science courses. Her research focuses on computational aspects of algebraic topology. She particularly enjoys teaching interdisciplinary courses and mentoring undergraduate projects involving mathematics and art.
Sara Sprenkle
Associate Professor of Computer Science and Department Head
Sprenkle teaches courses in programming, software development, and upper-level electives in software engineering. Her research focuses on automatically testing web applications to make sure they are behaving properly.
Natalia Toporikova
Associate Professor of Biology
Professor Toporikova’s courses include Biological Clocks and Rhythms, The Architecture of Living Systems, Dynamics of Biological Systems and Pregnancy: A Kiss in Time? In her research, she applies methods of computational modeling to study a wide range of biological systems. Some recent projects include neural control of breathing, pregnancy initiation in rats, and daily circadian cycle.