Emory College of Arts and Sciences - Department of Data and Decision Sciences

WHAT ARE DATA AND DECISION SCIENCES? THE FUTURE IS IN USING DATA AND AI TO MAKE DECISIONS. The DSci Mission Statement: DSci is committed to teaching Emory students the skills critical to using Data and AI to answer questions and solve problems in their applied field of interest whatever their disciplinary interest and whatever their level of technical sophistication. Further, DSci is also committed to define, describe and populate career paths with experiential learning and day-one readiness training for careers in tomorrow’s AI data-and AI-driven workforce. Why? The world is changing: Just as the Industrial Revolution completely changed the world, so too is the data and AI revolution completely changing the world. With the massive growth of computing power, the world’s ability to turn information into data and to apply extraordinarily complex algorithms to draw insights from that data is reaching previously unimaginable heights. The consequences of these changes are everywhere. We are revisiting existing questions and challenges with entirely new technology, and we are answering new questions and solving new problems that we never previously imagined we could. Further, the workforce of tomorrow is going to look entirely different from the workforce of today. Facility with data and AI are going to be necessary skills whether one is working in for profit corporations, non-profits, governments, or academia. This will be true from the least technically oriented jobs to the most technologically sophisticated ones. Education is changing: In response to this disruption, many are turning to statistics, data science, and computer science. These are the fields that teach students the technical skills necessary to collect, analyze, and produce insights and products from data. The department of Data and Decision Sciences (\double D Sci), sees these skills as the beginning, not the end, of your education. These skills allow one to use data and AI to answer questions and solve problems. But... Where do the questions come from? How do we know if we are using data and AI intelligently? How do we communicate with impact once we produced something of value? Questions and problems come from contextual fields of knowledge, natural sciences, social sciences, humanities, business, law, health and more. Using this technology intelligently requires research design and critical thinking skills. Communicating with impact, especially when we are talking about often very technical content that must be delivered to a non-technical audience, requires focused presentational and written skills. DSci’s program is designed to ensure you will not just be savvy with this technology, but you will also be prepared to be a decision leader in the application of this technology.