DSI is pleased to announce the recipients of our 2026 Data Science Seed & Collaborative Grants, whose projects from across the university will stimulate innovation and support education in data-driven fields.

The 2025 cohort of Data Science Fellows presented their projects from the semester on Wednesday afternoon, sharing how they’ve worked with faculty from across the university to incorporate data-driven tools into existing undergraduate courses.

DSI’s new Director Brenda Rubenstein is passionate about building bridges between disciplines, from her integrative computational research to her new initiatives to connect researchers at Brown through the Data Science Institute.

Congratulations to Ying Ma (Biostatistics), Loukas Gouskos (Physics), and Kim Fernandes (Anthropology) on receiving DSI’s three Early Career Awards this December.

Assistant Professor of the Practice of Data Science & Director of Industry and Research Engagement at DSI, Ahsan Ashraf, has spent his career bridging the gap between data science in academia and industry; he’s now bringing his experience and connections to Brown’s Master’s program in Data Science.

Guest speakers from local organizations shared how they address community priorities using data collection and analysis with students from DATA 80: Data, Ethics, and Society.

This week, the Data Science Institute hosted our annual mixer for our Affiliated Faculty to meet and mingle!

Emilia Huerta-Sánchez, Director of the Center for Computational Molecular Biology (CCMB) at DSI and Professor of Ecology, Evolution, and Organismal Biology, combines evolutionary theory with large genomic data to study human evolutionary biology.

This fall, the Data Science Institute is excited to announce the opening of a new, shared space for our students and faculty on the first floor of the Barus Building at 21 Manning St!

Join us in welcoming our new PhD students starting at the Center for Computational Molecular Biology (CCMB) and the Center for Technological Responsibility, Re-imagination, and Redesign (CNTR) this fall! We can't wait to see all they will accomplish during their time at Brown!

Get to know Sohini Ramachandran, Hermon C. Bumpus Professor of Biology and Data Science, Professor of Computer Science, and Director of Undergraduate Studies at DSI.

Get to know Andras Zsom, Assistant Professor of the Practice of Data Science and Director of Graduate Studies for Brown's Data Science Master's Program.

DSI Faculty Roberta De Vito and Shekhar Pradhan will be leaving Brown at the end of the month after years of service to the Data Science Institute and Brown. We are so lucky to have had them as a part of our DSI community, and we wish them great success and joy in their future endeavors!

Brenda Rubenstein, Stephen Bach, and Ying Ma have been appointed to named professorships following May’s Corporation Meeting.

During Spring 2025, nine PhD students successfully defended their dissertations from DSI, CCMB, and CNTR.

Congratulations to graduating seniors Anna Lapre, Michelle Ding, Catie Manning, and Gabriela Becher!

DSI is home to multiple undergraduate and graduate academic programs, each with passionate and inspiring students. Hear from some of our graduating students and explore what has inspired them at Brown.

In February, Data Fluency Certificate undergraduate students Sima Raha, Nazifa Qazizada, and Computational Biology undergraduate Hannah Beakley attended the WECode Conference at Harvard University, learning from tech industry leaders and connecting with fellow students.

Brown DSI & CSREA welcome AI policy expert Dr. Alondra Nelson to speak on governing the future of artificial intelligence.

Provost Francis J. Doyle III announced that Brenda Rubenstein, Associate Professor of Chemistry and Physics, has been named the Director of the Data Sciences Institute (DSI), effective July 1, 2025 through June 30, 2028.

On November 11, DSI hosted a mixer for our Affiliated Faculty community to meet, mingle, and learn about each other's work.

On Friday October 18, DSI hosted Brown's first Women in Data Science (WiDS) Providence Conference, organized by DSI students and postdocs and featuring experts from data science industry and academia.

On October 15, DSI launched a new Online Data Science Master’s program in collaboration with the Brown School of Professional Studies with a unique curriculum focused on policy, governance, and ethics in data science.

This summer, DSI put out a call for Brown faculty from across the university to join our affiliated faculty. DSI accepted sixty-one new faculty affiliates this week and now hosts a community of 115 faculty affiliates whose research or teaching involves data or computational science.

During National Postdoc Appreciation Week 2024, DSI is highlighting our postdocs and their range of impactful work.

Meet the incoming PhD students who will be joining CCMB and CNTR this year.

A unique undergraduate class on data visualization and narrative taught this past spring thrills students and teaches valuable skills in data science and design.

Gianluca Brero, a DSI and CS postdoc who recently became an Assistant Professor at Bryant University, discusses his research on using real-world data and AI to improve the design and fairness of markets like Uber, AirBnB, mobile network license auctions, and sustainable energy.

Alden Bumstead, DSI’s Associate Director, is retiring after seven years at the Data Science Institute. She has shepherded DSI through its growth from a small program to a thriving Institute at Brown.

DSI became the Data Science Institute at Brown on July 1, 2023 after seven years as an “Initiative” and much hard work. We’re looking back at some highlights and the state of the Institute after a successful year.

Get to know Ying Ma, Assistant Professor of Biostatistics and Core Faculty at the Center for Computational Molecular Biology (CCMB).

Get to know Karianne Bergen, Assistant Professor of Data Science and Earth, Environmental, and Planetary Sciences and DSI Director of Postdoctoral Engagement.

Get to know Suresh Venkatasubramanian, Deputy Director of the Data Science Institute, Professor of Data Science and Computer Science, and Director of the Center for Technological Responsibility, Reimagination, and Redesign.

DSI celebrates our 2024 graduating students with an Undergrad and PhD Lunch and a Master's Dinner during Commencement Weekend. Congratulations to our graduating students!

Congratulations to all of the graduating students earning their doctoral, master’s, and undergraduate degrees from DSI-related programs this year!

Each year, DSI awards a number of seed grants to researchers pursuing data science projects across the university. DSI recently announced the grantees of the 2024 Data Science Seed Grants @ Brown and celebrated the accomplishments of the 2023 grantees.

Congratulations to CCMB and CNTR’s doctoral candidates who successfully defended their dissertations this year!

This year's Deep Learning Day (actually held across two days due to large participation) showcased student projects across a myriad of fields, from computer vision to healthcare to art, and included many projects from DSI students.

DSI and CS Master’s students in Professor Roberta DeVito’s DATA2020: Statistical Learning class gathered at DSI for an engaging poster session on their statistical learning projects this week.

Congratulations to DSI postdoc Cristina Menghini and Brown colleagues Stephen Bach (Assistant Professor of Computer Science) and Yong Zheng-Xin (PhD student in Computer Science)!

Professor Venkatasubramanian made the list as one of The Chronicle of Philanthropy's "33 Leaders Standing Up to Big Tech in the Age of A.I."

DSI has made grants supporting nine projects at Brown.

DSI's Director of Graduate Studies, Andras Zsom, led a workshop called "Introduction to Interpretability in Machine Learning."

Linda Clark, newly promoted to Senior Lecturer of Data Science, has been the driving force behind DSI’s undergraduate education programs at Brown.

On Tuesday, February 7, the Brown faculty voted in favor of creating a Brown Data Science Institute, building on the Data Science Initiative that was created here in 2016.

Tassallah Amina Abdullahi, a second-year doctoral student in Computer Science, has won a highly competitive Computational and Data Science Fellowship from the Association for Computing Machinery’s Special Interest Group on High Performance Computing (ACM SIGHPC).

Stephen Bach (Assistant Professor of Computer Science) and Jonathan Pober (Assistant Professor of Physics), along with colleagues at the University of Washington, have been awarded a Collaborative Research grant from the National Science Foundation

The incoming co-chairs of DSI's Campus Advisory Board are Stephen Bach (Assistant Professor of Computer Science) and Margot Jackson (Professor of Sociology).