Innovators
Harris Search Associates
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The Innovators podcast, a product of Harris Search Associates, features interesting conversations with global thought leaders in the areas of higher education and research, engineering, technology, and the health sciences and provides our listeners an opportunity to benefit from lessons learned from the national leaders changing the landscape of innovation and discovery.
Episode results
Innovators
Jan 17, 2023
The Development and Evolution of Data Science: Potential and Leadership (with Philip E. Bourne, Ph.D., Founding Stephenson Dean, School of Data Science and Professor of Biomedical Engineering, University of Virginia)
Dr. Philip Bourne, founding Stephenson Dean of the School of Data Science at the University of Virginia, established in 2019 with a gift of $120 million. Dr. Bourne’s career encompasses work at Columbia University, the University of California at San Diego, and the National Institutes of Health and includes motorcycle jaunts throughout western Virginia and beyond. We spoke with him at his office in Charlottesville about the following (abridged version of) questions:
1. Why a separate school of data science?
2. What gives data science its coherence as a professional field and an academic discipline? Does that include tackling a set of “grand challenges” such as we see in, for example, engineering?
3. Your school is described as one “without walls,” suggesting perhaps a virtual format for learning. How will students, including working professionals you identify as persons you seek to serve, learn in the school?
4. Is there any reason to expect student enrollment and degree completion in data science to be any different in terms of representation of persons of color? Will students be taught by a diverse data science faculty? If so, why?
5. What do you see as the other key attributes, experiences, and expertise of someone who can lead successfully an academic leadership position in data science?
INNOVATORS is a podcast production of Harris Search Associates.
*The views and opinions shared by the guests on INNOVATORS do not necessarily reflect the views of the interviewee's institution or organization.*
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Innovators
Nov 1, 2022
Pushing the Boundaries of What's Possible in Children's Health: Breakthroughs & Beyond (with Carlos R. Estrada Jr., MD)
Over the past year, several INNOVATORS were devoted to learning more about the state of pediatric research. In this podcast, we learn about a breakthrough in the development of tissue from silk for use in the treatment of children born with spinal bifida.
Dr. Carlos Estrada holds appointments at Boston Children’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School and was instrumental in the development and use of a new type of tissue. He earned his undergraduate degree from College of the Holy Cross and the MD from Wright State University Boonshoft School of Medicine. He completed an internship and residencies at Rush University Medical Center, then accepted a fellowship at Boston Children’s Hospital from which he accepted an appointment to the faculty there. He earned an MBA from MIT. He focuses his research on tissue engineering and neurogenic bladder dysfunction.
In today’s podcast, he responds to the following questions:
* Describe the work you and your colleagues have been engaged in, particularly the rationale for pursuing it as well as its significance for the treatment of children?
* Since launching INNOVATORS nearly 5 years ago, we’ve encountered several instances in a variety of fields including veterinary medicine and prosthetics, to mention only two, where the search for material that might be a substitute for surface skin was the “holy grail”. Your work seems to open up a much broader spectrum of applications. What are some of those and are the applications direct and straightforward or do they entail more research?
* The announcement of your breakthrough was attended by an emphasis on the importance of collaboration that transcended areas of specialization and perhaps even entire fields. Who/what were those other partners and how did the collaboration come about and how was it sustained? Specifically, what role did leadership, on the part of an individual or a group of decision makers, play in facilitating collaboration?
* The kind of research you and colleagues have been involved with requires resources. What kinds and which sources of resources were instrumental in advancing your research?
* Finally, even as you revel in what your research has accomplished, do you look out beyond the more immediate uses of your findings to applications that have become a bit more feasible precisely because of what the research makes possible now? What are some of those? INNOVATORS is a podcast production of Harris Search Associates.
*The views and opinions shared by the guests on INNOVATORS do not necessarily reflect the views of the interviewee's institution or organization.*
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Innovators
Oct 4, 2022
Data Science: Academia's Newest and Fastest-Growing Field (with Dr. Talitha Washington, Professor of Mathematics and the Director of the Atlanta University Center Data Science Initiative)
Dr. Talitha Washington is Professor of Mathematics and the Director of the Atlanta University Center Data Science Initiative.
On leave to the National Science Foundation, she received the NSF Director’s Award for Superior Accomplishment in 2020 “for exceptional stewardship in establishing the first NSF Hispanic-serving Institution program.” She is a graduate of Spelman College and earned her Ph.D. from the University of Connecticut, then completed a research post-doctorate at Duke University.
The Atlanta University Center Data Science Initiative is a unique collaboration among four historically black colleges and universities (Clark Atlanta University, Morehouse College, Morehouse School of Medicine, and Spelman College) aiming to infuse data science within and across each institution, and led by its Director, Dr. Washington, who responded to these questions:
* How did the four institutions of the consortium come together to seek to establish a data science initiative and why?
* What is the scope of the AUC Data Science Initiative and what outcomes are being pursued?
* You and your staff are tasked with integrating data science into and across the curricula of four separate institutions and therefore have to know how courses and curricula are made. How do you go about making change take place? Moreover, aren’t you also changing faculty?
* As a mathematician and data scientist yourself, it seems likely that you have looked at data on the relative success of cross-institutional, multi- and inter-disciplinary curricular and instruction initiatives such as you are directing. What do the data tell you?
* A final question is prompted by good news for you and your colleagues. The National Science Foundation announced that Clark Atlanta University will be awarded a $10 million grant to establish the National Data Science Alliance. The new Alliance will extend the University’s efforts to expand participation in data science to the nation’s HBCU institutions and increase the numbers of credentialed Black data scientists. As the new Alliance’s principal investigator, tell us what is the scale of this effort? How many more institutions will be involved and what do you aim to accomplish in terms of additional student data scientists?
Innovators is a podcast production of Harris Search Associates.
*The views and opinions shared by the guests on Innovators do not necessarily reflect the views of the interviewee's institution or organization.*
For additional insights on data science, see previous INNOVATORS podcasts:
Digital Health – Technological and Scientific Invention and Innovation in Healthcare;
The Burgeoning and Expanding Field of Data Science; and Artificial Intelligence and Precision Medicine.
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