UMass Amherst Hosts Data Science Research Symposium on April 12

**MEDIA ADVISORY**

Date:      Thursday, April 12, 2018
Time:      9 a.m. to 4 p.m.
What:     Research symposium
Where:   UMass Amherst Campus Center Auditorium, 1 Campus Center Way 

More than 250 participants are expected at the UMass Amherst Center for Data Sciences’ third annual research symposium, including industry researchers from 50 companies such as Amazon, Bloomberg, Cooley Dickinson Health Care, Google, IBM, Intel, MassMutual, Microsoft, Oracle, Raytheon, State Street, Verizon and Wayfair, with UMass Amherst and Five College faculty and students.

Organizers say the symposium supports collaboration with industry partners to help drive economic development in the Commonwealth and beyond by connecting faculty members, senior researchers and graduate students with industry and public sector leaders to explore practical applications and potential of data science.

Symposium presenters are expected to describe recent advances in controversy detection, machine learning, computer vision, high-performance computing, workforce analytics, high-reliability cloud computing and human language understanding. They will also share perspectives on future university-grade data science research challenges.

Andrew K. McCallum, director of the center and professor of computer science in the College of Information and Computer Sciences, says this year’s symposium will showcase the center’s growing portfolio of industry-sponsored data science research, and examine technical trends and future opportunities in this rapidly-growing field.

“We’re excited to build on the success of last year’s symposium, which reinforced and validated the importance of public-private collaborations. This year, we’ll bring together top data science research talent in industry and academia to share successes, identify new research frontiers, and launch transformational new partnerships.”