2023 Data Science Newsletter
Message from the Program Director
Program Spotlights
Alumni Class Notes
Message from the Program Director
Greetings to all of our alumni from the George Washington University Data Science Program! I am pleased to report that our program is as strong as ever with growth in both the graduate and undergraduate programs this past year. Through this newsletter, you’ll read about a few of the exciting things happening in the program, including our new relationship with the World Bank. There are also some fabulous alumni events on the docket, and I hope you have the opportunity to attend some of them and engage with fellow graduates.
Thank you so much for your support and involvement. Please stay in touch.
Sincerely,
Ryan Engstrom
Director, Data Science Program
Program Spotlights
Our First Data Science Bachelor’s Graduates!
Our first two Data Science Bachelor of Science majors graduated in December 2022! Congratulations to Jeily Bonilla and Hiwot Temesgen!
The Data Science undergraduate program started offering DATS 2103 Data Mining for Data Science in the spring of 2021 and the undergraduate major and minor programs were officially launched in the fall of 2021. With four semesters under our belt, our first two seniors completed their capstone courses and graduated with a BS in data science!
Jeily Bonilla’s domain concentration in DATS was science, technology, and society, with a minor in sociology. She worked on an NLP project with Professor Jamie Cohen-Cole in the American Studies Department. Our second graduating senior, Hiwot Temesgen, earned a double major in biology (cell and molecular biology) and data science. Hiwot worked with Professor Marinella Temprosa, an associate research professor at the Department of Biostatistics and Bioinformatics, to build a graph database for HIV medications. We congratulate them both with our warmest wishes and look forward to learning how they use their data skills in future endeavors.
Data Science Takes Talent to World Bank
In fall 2022, our graduate capstone students participated in the World Bank Group’s (WB) University Data Fellows partnership program. Our Data Science Director, Dr. Ryan Engstrom, negotiated this partnership where our capstone students work with teams at WB on chosen projects to reduce poverty and build prosperity around the world.
Out of the 15 WB team proposals, we selected three projects that fit well with our capstone students to kickoff this special program. With a wide range of expertise from the WB teams, they mentored five of our graduate students in three teams. Topics include decarbonization of transport (CO2 emission in Panama and other countries); urban vs rural classification (GIS, Pakistan); and global diffusion of low carbon technologies (NLP, worldwide).
The five participating students were ShuTing Cai, Sara Sanchez, Lydia Teinfalt, DeYu Kong and Rehapriadarsini Manikandasamy. They completed their projects, like all others in capstone, with oral presentations as well as poster presentations. Their oral presentations were delivered at the World Bank, which is just two blocks from GW. The presentations themselves were held hybrid, allowing 50+ WB associates to join from all over the world. The presentations were well-received. Kudos to ShuTing, Sara, Lydia, DeYu and Reha! We will continue this partnership with WB in spring 2023. Stay tuned for more updates!
Alumni Class Notes
Jeremy Lawson, MS ’18, is a co-founder and CEO of the tech company Salynt, which has developed a low-code data science platform for creating AI-enabled applications.
Madison Turano, MS ’19, is a senior consultant and data scientist at Guidehouse. She leads a team of data analysts and data engineers, helping clients unlock the power of their data.
Matthew Wilchek, MS ’21, is a full-time student working towards his PhD in computer science at Virginia Tech. His research focus is on computer vision for augmented reality with support from the U.S. Army.