Clinic aims to help students squeeze more from their data

Members of the Rice community who need help with their data science challenges can get free advice at the Rice Data Science Consulting Clinic.

From 1 to 4 p.m. Mondays, faculty and students can stop by Rayzor Hall, Room 113, for assistance with such issues as data acquisition, data management, data wrangling, data visualization, statistical analysis, statistical modeling and machine learning.

Run by Rice data science faculty and students, the Rice Data Science Consulting Clinic is a “win-win,” said Genevera Allen, associate professor of statistics, who organized the clinic, which doubles as a class: Data Science Consulting (STAT 415/STAT 515). “The students will apply what they have learned about data science, and the Rice community will benefit from their knowledge in practical ways.”

Under Allen’s mentorship, data-science students serve as consultants to Rice faculty and students. Enrolled in the class this semester are 12 graduate and undergraduate students representing six disciplines – statistics, electrical and computer engineering, computer science, computational and applied mathematics, mechanical engineering and psychology.

“The students will advise clients on their data-science challenges,” Allen said. “They’ll learn best practices in consulting and gain exposure to a variety of real data-science problems.”

More information can be found at datascienceconsult.rice.edu.

–Patrick Kurp is a science writer in the George R. Brown School of Engineering.