Page 2 - Research | The Meliora Challenge

Undergraduate students beneft, too. Tey gain depth in a discipline A University Priority: The Data Science and contribute to what is known Initiative about an area that interests them. Tey pursue research projects that Data science is one of the allow them to dig into a topic. Along defning disciplines of the 21st the way, they develop problem- century. Just as the Gutenberg solving skills, make professional press revolutionized the dis- connections, and participate in semination of information, experiential learning opportunities the production of books and outside the classroom, inspiring newspapers, and the devel- them to go on to graduate studies opment of knowledge, data in felds aligned with their under- science is changing how the graduate research experiences. world consumes, uses, applies, and understands information. Graduate and The feld has evolved as a Postdoctoral Research hybrid of research in statistics, Our graduate and postdoctoral stu- electrical and computer engi- dents pursue research at the highest neering, computer sciences, level across 24 diverse departments. and scientifc information, Students have exceptional oppor- driven largely by the prolifera- tunities for interdisciplinary study tion of data in the digital age. that few universities can match. The University of Rochester Here are just a few examples: has made data science the centerpiece of its fve-year strategic plan, committing $50 Arts and Humanities Berin Golonu, a fourth-year visual million—in addition to more and cultural studies doctoral student, than $50 million it has spent is examining society’s changing in recent years—to greatly relationship to nature as conveyed expand its work in this bur- through art, literature, and photogra- geoning feld. The data science phy during the late Ottoman Empire initiative includes the cre- and early Turkish Republic from ation of the Institute for Data 1850–1930, a period of westerniza- Science, the construction of tion and modernization. Berin is the a state-of-the-art building to recipient of numerous fellowships house it, and up to 20 new fac- that have given her access to archives ulty lines in diverse areas. The and collections in Turkey. University intends to be among the world’s leaders in the feld. Engineering Bianca Jackson, a postdoctoral Natural Sciences research associate in the lab of Xi- Alex Pullen is a research associate Cheng Zhang, the M. Parker Givens at the University of Arizona with Professor in Optics at the Institute adjunct faculty status at Rochester, of Optics, made international news where he continues to work on one Pictured top to bottom: The when she used terahertz technology of two National Science Foundation University’s Baby Lab, where to uncover authentic Roman-era art (NSF) grants he received as a researchers study human beneath the surface of a fresco in the postdoctoral research associate development; the C.E.K. Mees Observatory; the Integrated Louvre. Jackson is regarded as a pio- in the Department of Earth and Nanosystems Center; and vials of neer in the use of terahertz imaging Environmental Sciences. His work nanocrystals under ultraviolet light. to examine historical artifacts. focuses on understanding tectonic