story by Claire Miller
Assistant Professor Ben Shapiro is part of an interdisciplinary team that recently received a $1.5 million National Science Foundation grant to create a new type of training model for universities to employ and help people in underserved communities pursue careers in data science.
Shapiro and colleagues in Georgia Institute of Technology’s College of Computing are scaling DataWorks – a program that recruits people from communities historically underrepresented in computer science fields and prepares them for data science careers – to create a model other universities can use to establish similar types of training programs in collaboration with local communities and organizations.
In creating and sharing this training model, the DataWorks team hopes to not only contribute to a more diverse workforce but also develop broader understandings of data work as opposed to data science.
“While opportunities for data science workers are rapidly growing across businesses and organizations of all sizes, people from historically minoritized communities are often excluded from the training opportunities necessary to be competitive for these jobs,” Shapiro explained. “DataWorks seeks to develop a new university-industry training model that addresses this problem in ways that also generate new research ideas and tools at the intersection of learning sciences, computer science and technology ethics.”