Membership in the Data Science Institute (DSI) is open to full-time faculty in the Columbia University community who are actively engaged in the Data Science Institute.

Terminology:

We distinguish between a member and an affiliate of the Data Science Institute and use the term “membership” for members and “affiliation” for affiliate.

 

Guiding Principle: To open membership or affiliation to anyone in the Columbia community who is actively engaged in DSI, energetically and enthusiastically supports the mission of the Institute, and contributes to its activities and program.

Who: By “faculty”, we mean full-time officers of instruction and officers of research. Postdocs and students are not eligible to be members or affiliates of DSI.

Process: Any interested faculty member at Columbia may apply to be a member or affiliate of DSI. A DSI membership committee will determine membership. A member will have a three-year renewable term. We encourage any interested faculty to talk first to the chair of the DSI membership committee before officially applying, to get a sense of the expectations of being a DSI member.

When applying, an applicant may include these ways of contributing to DSI:

  • Teach regularly (once a year) a data science related course.
  • Teach for bootcamps, training workshops, executive education, etc.
  • Regularly run data science relevant grants (including industry-funded research) through DSI
  • Sponsor postdocs and/or Ph.D. students doing work in data science
  • Serve on a DSI standing committee, e.g., Leadership Team, Executive Committee, Education Committee, Membership Committee
  • Serve as a chair/co-chair of DSI center
  • Support engagements with industry
  • Participate in multiple industry meetings
  • Formal presentations to industry at their facilities

 

These examples are typical of current members/affiliates. Applicants are encouraged to suggest ideas not on this list in their application. We are always open to new and creative ways to enrich DSI’s impact at Columbia and beyond.

Expectations and Benefits for Members

DSI members are expected to be ambassadors for the DSI and for data science at Columbia:

  • List DSI as one of their Columbia affiliations in cv, talks, papers, grant proposals, letters of reference, press articles, etc.
  • Help promote DSI internally and externally
  • Participate in DSI intellectual community and outreach
  • Work with the DSI communications team to publicize research and educational contributions to data science
  • List DSI in any grant run through the institute and publication funded by such grant

Benefits

  • On email list, thus informed of all DSI news, events, and funding opportunities
  • Listed on DSI website
    • Priority support from the DSI grants development and management team Support on shaping and execution of grants
    • Inclusion on funding opportunities
  • Support from our industry affiliates
  • Support from programs provided by acceleration funds: seed grants, post-docs, faculty recruiting
  • Support from resources provided by development funds (when they come)
  • Support from staff to run DSI-based events
  • Support from DSI-funded computational resources, e.g., credits on Habernero
  • Priority access to data science expertise through applied data scientists, post-docs, graduate students, and undergraduates, depending on their availability
  • Priority access to DSI space, if and when available
  • Publicity of people and their work through DSI communication team efforts
  • Promotion of work through Director’s presentations about DSI internally and externally

Become a Member