Sierra Hubbard, News Editor
The Board of Regents of the University System of Georgia approved a new doctorate program for KSU in analytics and data science at a meeting last Wednesday, Feb. 11.
The program will launch in the fall of 2015, and the rigorous coursework will prepare students to work either in the private sector as analysts for corporations or in academia as future professors.
“It actually sits at the intersection of mathematics, statistics, and computer science,” said Jennifer Priestley, who will serve as director of the new program. “So, approximately 20 percent of the coursework is going to come from the math department, approximately 50 percent of the coursework is going to come from the statistics department, and approximately 30 percent of the coursework is going to come from computer science.”
Priestley has been with KSU since 2004 and was involved with the development of both the minor in applied statistics and data analysis as well as the master’s degree in science and applied statistics.
“An important part of this Ph.D. program is helping students learn how to work with both structured and unstructured data,” Priestley said. “They are going to learn text mining, for example.
“And then in addition they are going to be learning all of the big data programming languages, which is going to be coming out of computer science.”
Recent growth in demand for data science jobs has greatly influenced the development of this doctorate, coupled with the continued success of the related undergraduate minor and, particularly, the master’s degree, which earned KSU the 2014 Data+ Editors’ Choice Award from Computerworld magazine.
“Our master’s in science and applied statistics has effectively a 100 percent placement rate,” Priestley said. “Individuals that graduate with a master’s in science and applied statistics have no trouble getting jobs. Most of those students have two to three job offers well in advance of graduation.”
Provost and Vice President of Student Affairs Ken Harmon also believes the program will have a positive effect on the university as a whole.
“Kennesaw State already has a strong national reputation in applied statistics,” Harmon said. “This program will dramatically enhance that reputation.”
Even the recent consolidation lends its strengths to the new program.
“This particular program was in the works before we started consolidation,” Harmon said. “However, I think the consolidation will greatly enhance the program’s core strength. For example, the new Ph.D. program relies significantly on interdisciplinary areas, such as Computer Science, and with consolidation, we now have an entire college dedicated to Computing and Software Engineering.”
The program will be housed under the College of Science and Mathematics and will report directly to the dean due to its interdisciplinary nature. The dean, Mark Anderson, is very excited for the effect this will have on the university and its students, listing examples of companies that utilize data science and analysis.
“Airlines price seats using data that they have collected to try to maximize the passenger load of each flight and their profits,” Anderson said. “Netflix collects data on their users to suggest movies based on previous viewing patterns. Google, Facebook, Yahoo, etc. target the advertisements that appear in your browser based on data that has been collected that targets the individual.”
He also explains how the job opportunities like these that will be made available by this doctorate are being compounded by its design and the incorporation of businesses.
“The program was designed in collaboration with many community and industrial partners input,” Anderson said. “These partners have agreed to provide one-year internships to the students in the program so that they can work on research projects (as part of the student’s dissertation) that are of importance to the company, but also to give students exposure to companies in different industries.”
Many students are eager for the opportunity this presents. Senior and computer science major Cory Huckeba sees great potential in the program, emphasizing its versatility.
“I think a cross discipline doctorate like that could allow alumni to have more practical skills in areas involving aspects of all those fields,” Huckeba said. “So, in turn, it might enable them to pursue research in new, more practical ways.”
Demand for the program has exceeded expectations. According to Priestley, the applications were opened up to students on Wednesday around 2:00pm, and within 24 hours there were already 19 applicants. To begin with, the program with have five students, and the number will increase gradually each semester until they have comfortably reached their goal of 25 doctorate students at any given time.
