Statistics and Data Science Overview

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College of Letters and Science

8125 Mathematical Sciences
Box 951554
Los Angeles, CA 90095-1554

Statistics and Data Science
310-825-8430
E-mail contact

Hongquan Xu, PhD, Chair

 

The purpose of statistics and data science is to design, construct, and evaluate techniques for analyzing data. The data can be of any type—qualitative, quantitative, visual—and be collected through a variety of means through sensors, machines, self-reports, or random samples. The motivation can be scientific, commercial, legal, or policy. 

The Department of Statistics and Data Science is devoted to furthering the science of data, and faculty research focuses on statistical and machine learning, computational statistics, computational biology, social statistics, and environmetrics. Both the undergraduate and graduate programs immerse students in theory, application, and computation—the foundations of data science.

Centers

Reflecting diverse research interests, the department is organized around several centers that collectively offer undergraduate and graduate students rich opportunities for specialized study. These include the Center for Environmental Statistics; Center for Social Statistics; Center for Statistical Research in Computational Biology; and Data Science Education Center.