Provost and Senior Vice Chancellor Ann E. Cudd recently announced that Bruce R. Childers, senior associate dean in the School of Computing and Information, will take on a new role in the Office of the Provost as special assistant to the provost for data science.

In the newly created role, Childers will collaborate across the University to develop policies and examine opportunities regarding data science. As a first step, he will help Cudd populate and charge the Task Force on Data Science, which will further propel the University’s educational and research mission through data.

“As I’ve established my priorities as Provost, the area of data science has emerged as one that is central the University’s forward progress,” said Cudd. She acknowledged the academic units around the University that are already responding to the need to teach students and support faculty and staff in the skills, ethics and practical aspects of working with data. “Data science now permeates education, government, medicine, engineering, entertainment, science, the arts, humanities and business, touching nearly every facet of life … Coordinating and collaborating on these activities could leverage our collective ability, jointly build capacity to meet the demand and foster opportunities for new interdisciplinary educational and research programs.”

“Data science is increasingly relevant to our students and faculty. I am excited and honored to chair the task force that will find ways to grow data science at Pitt to meet this need,” Childers said.

Childers will maintain his responsibilities as chair of the Department of Information Culture and Data Stewardship and professor of computer science. He is also an affiliate scholar with the Institute for Cyber Law, Policy, and Security. His recent work focuses on technology and cultural changes to advance transparency, reuse and reproducibility in computationally driven science.