American Family Funding Initiative
American Family Insurance has partnered with UW through the American Family Insurance Data Science Institute to support fundamental data science research. The American Family Funding Initiative provides research awards of up to $150,000, with research teams based in departments across the UW-Madison campus.
Training and Consultation
Are you looking for campus data and computing resources to support your research? Interested in starting new collaborations with data scientists and other researchers on campus? Looking for training in data and computing skills? The Data Science Hub's team of expert facilitators provides consultations and training.
Majors and Courses
UW-Madison offers a BA/BS in Data Science through the School of Computer, Data and Information Sciences. Additionally, many Master's and Ph.D. programs on campus involve data science. This website is your starting point to explore majors and courses in data science at UW-Madison.
Faces of Data Science
“I apply data science and machine learning tools to solve pressing issues in agriculture, food security, land, water, and other natural resource issues. Connecting machine learning theory to real-world problems is why I’m here and why I choose to do this work.”
Zhou Zhang
Assistant Professor, Department of Biological Systems Engineering, College of Agricultural and Life Sciences; Faculty Affiliate, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Zhou Zhang seeks to improve agricultural productivity with data science through precision farming tools. Her lab uses remote sensing and machine learning to improve field crop production, decrease the use of farm inputs like nitrogen, reduce production costs and labor needs, and protect the environment. Zhou uses drone imagery to monitor crop and weed growth and predict yields. Farmers and agronomic researchers can use this information to apply inputs like herbicides and fertilizer only when needed, in just the right amounts, protecting groundwater and soil without compromising yields.
While she trained as a data scientist, Zhou’s Ph.D. research included a project on high-throughput, image-based plant phenotyping that sparked her interest in agriculture. Plant phenotypes are measurable traits, like leaf size or plant height, that are traditionally measured by hand in the field. Zhou continues to work in this area, using machine learning to accelerate breeding for desired plant traits.
Through her research, Zhou aims to use data science tools to solve real-world problems in agriculture. She sees this as a new and exciting research area that is poised for growth as more people realize how data science can benefit farmers and the environment.
Data science is an emerging field that is roughly defined as the study, development, and application of methods that reveal new insights from data, which include numbers, text, images, graphs, sounds, code, and metadata. This website provides an inclusive data science portal to guide people to relevant resources and activities at UW-Madison.
As data reshapes our world, UW–Madison brings the power of data science to every field of study. The future path of data science will be shaped by insights from all disciplines.