During Alden Bumstead’s first week at Brown in 2017, the Data Science Initiative was also welcoming its very first cohort of Master’s students.

“When I started at DSI, it was a Masters program, a big NSF grant, three faculty members, and some postdocs on the ninth floor of the Sciences Library,” says Alden, who has been the Associate Director of DSI for seven years. She has run the administration and finances for DSI and supported its strategic vision over the years.

“Our floor at the SciLi was a third of the size of our current space. We had a few little offices and some open desks for the postdocs and Masters students,” Alden says. “It was small and we grew out of it super fast. DSI has flourished so much since then.”

DSI began as the Data Science Initiative at Brown in 2015. As was written in the original proposal to establish the Data Science Initiative, DSI planned to integrate the strengths of four of Brown’s strongest departments: Computer Science, Mathematics, Applied Math, and Biostatistics. 

“It’s valuable for people from these fields to come together to talk about data science: this thing that is not necessarily new, but is becoming bigger and more important because of our ability to produce so much data everywhere, all the time,” Alden says. DSI provided an innovative and interdisciplinary locus for thinking about how we use data in the modern world and developing the tools to work with it. 

Alden is retiring this August after a long and diverse career, and after supporting DSI through many changes. 

In 2019, DSI moved from the ninth floor of the SciLi into the third floor at 164 Angell St, above the Brown Bookstore. “We were here for just over a year before we all went home for COVID-19,” Alden recalls, “and then we were out of the office for about a year and a half.”

Soon after returning, DSI began the process of transitioning from an Initiative to an official Institute at Brown. DSI became the Data Science Institute in July 2023. 

Alden played a supporting role in writing the proposal to undergo this transition, and has been the backbone of DSI during her time here. All three directors of DSI, Jeff Brock, Bjorn Sandstede, and Sohini Ramachandran have used Alden as a “sounding board” for ideas about the big picture at DSI.

“I didn’t know anything about data science – I mean, I have a PhD in English Literature! But, I’ve learned how to ask the right questions at the right moments. And I hope they’ve found that valuable.”

Though Alden is retiring, she has high hopes for the future of DSI. “It feels like DSI has been a different place every year. I’ve loved being at the beginning of something great and watching and helping it grow.” 

During its founding, DSI aimed to set itself apart from data science centers at other universities by harnessing the interdisciplinary nature of Brown to integrate “societal and humanistic questions” with the “challenges of developing methodologies in Data Science,” as the original proposal from 2015 stated.

DSI continues to pursue this vision today. Currently, the Data Science Institute houses a Masters in Data Science program, an undergraduate Data Fluency Certificate program, eleven faculty members, nine postdocs, the Center for Computational Molecular Biology, and our newly established Center for Technological Responsibility, Reimagination, and Redesign, whose mission to “redefine computer science education, research, and technology to center the needs, problems, and aspirations of all” reflects DSI’s interdisciplinary goals.

Alden also hopes that DSI will continue becoming more integrated with programs across campus, and that it will gain more recognition. 

“One of my favorite events we did at DSI was one on ‘Algorithmic Justice, Race Bias, and Big Data,’ organized with the Center for the Study of Race and Ethnicity in America. We had so many big names in one space. But also, this is really where the rubber hits the road with the problems in data science and the ways that algorithmic unfairness has affected real people’s lives,” Alden shares. “I hope that DSI can have more collaborative events like this in the future.”

Personally, Alden is excited to take on an abundance of projects now that she is retiring. “I have so many crafty projects that I want to do,” she says. She is planning on taking a Master Gardener class at URI this spring and making a quilt out of photographs. “I also have to win the Head of the Charles in rowing this year. I’ve just entered a new age group, so this is my year.”

DSI will miss Alden greatly after her retirement. We are so grateful for all that she has done for DSI through its formative years. “When I think about where DSI started and where it is now, it’s grown so much more than I would have expected seven years ago. It’s so impressive to me. I can’t wait to see how DSI will grow next.”