How Data Science Will Change the World

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• Catherine Poland- [email protected]

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As Rajesh K. Gupta, the newly appointed dean of the School of Computing, Information and Data Sciences (SCIDS), thinks about leading the school, he is considering how to guide an emerging discipline so that it benefits students, faculty and society as a whole.

The school - created in 2024 - brings together the University of California San Diego's rapidly growing Halıcıoğlu Data Science Institute (HDSI), and the campus' long-established San Diego Supercomputer Center (SDSC), a global leader in the operationalization of data science and high-performance and accelerated computing. Establishing SCIDS is a leap forward in HDSI's leadership in advancing the emerging fields of AI and training talent to work in AI-enabled professions.

UC San Diego Today caught up with Gupta, a distinguished professor in the Jacobs School of Engineering, the founding director of HDSI and the interim dean of SCIDS from its inception to his permanent appointment, to chat about his vision for the school and the crucial role it will play in integrating AI solutions into everyday life.

What's the vision behind the School of Computing, Information and Data Sciences?

SCIDS is the next generation in our thinking about an academic organization that is focused on how data affects life, how knowledge is extracted from data, and how it drives action. It is the first time we have thought of a new discipline in a completely holistic manner. Rather than being an island, the new field is defined by the inclusion of the multiple areas that it intersects with.

And what does that mean? The new field is like a diamond with many facets: including philosophy, sciences, biology, medicine, engineering. So now you are cutting a diamond in which all these facets interact with other disciplines and yet together they define something new. A new discipline that builds and reflects upon existing areas in a way that enhances those disciplines. So, for example, how is philosophy done better when informed by data science? How is engineering done better because of data science? And so on.

Notionally, we know that a new discipline is emerging. We don't know everything about how it will evolve, which societal areas will have the most impact, where we will see the most technological advances. Yet, we do have two clear mandates: One is that we want to direct the evolution of this discipline constructively. And the second is that we want to make sure that UC San Diego is the number one destination of talent in this area, both in terms of drawing in the top teachers and researchers, but also in terms of the talent we produce through our courses and programs. These two missions are driving how we organize our activities at this school.

What's the relationship between SCIDS, data science and AI?

SCIDS is designed as an academic home for a new generation of science and engineering and the way that they touch humans and society. Today, it requires advancing and deploying AI.

Traditionally, the world of knowledge has been divided between two very distinct universes. One side was science and math, and the other was arts and humanities. The former was the world of numbers, the so-called quantitative fields, while the latter was the world of words and text. But something fundamentally changed in the last 20 years, and that is what led us to think about data science. The computing machines became powerful enough to go beyond the world of numbers, to the world of text in meaningful ways. They became much more than numerical tools.

For instance, today, I can give a thick document to the computing machines and ask, "Give me four major points that this report makes." And it can indeed do just that. So the world of numbers found itself in the middle of the world of text, and the world of text found itself in the world of numbers.

This has become the new incarnation of AI, and its advances have accelerated in the last seven or eight years. While we are still in the early phases of that evolution, it is already affecting every single business, profession and domain of knowledge.

How is SCIDS reshaping what a modern university should look like?

We are living in times when practical experience is essential even for entry-level jobs for our graduating students. For SCIDS we started with an understanding of needs for our talent: What kind of jobs will the students do after graduation? What kind of education and training should we provide that will last for their entire life? To meet those needs there are three pillars to this school.

The first pillar is its operational arm that includes translational academics. That is, academics that are deeply aware of practical needs and application outcomes. SDSC already operationalizes advances in computing, supercomputing and data sciences by designing and building systems of use to practitioners in domains such as sciences, health sciences and other areas. Our vision for the future of SDSC is that it drives the emergence of a translational academic arm that drives science and technological advances led by research professors. These advances will then be encapsulated as learning components in our training programs.

The second pillar is the school's extraordinary accessible learning and training opportunities. SCIDS will offer not just bachelor's, master's and doctoral degrees in person but across various platforms. We are open to talent from all walks of life, and in wide-ranging locations. For example, if a person doesn't want to leave their job in order to get our training, we have online or weekend programs. We have certificates as well as stackable degree programs. Stackable here means coursework that naturally lends itself to building academic credentials, such as a PhD degree, which sometimes builds upon a master's of science degree earned on the way.

The third pillar is our national and international presence. Academic organizations are built upon finding and cultivating extraordinary talent. Online and remotely accessible courses enable us to discover such talent, and remote offerings can become a draw to UC San Diego. We would like to see compelling talent from all walks of life with the creative spark to advance emerging areas of data science and computing.

What personally drew you to lead this school and shape a new discipline?

In an academic career there are few opportunities to witness - and even fewer opportunities to influence - the growth of a new discipline. What draws me here is the opportunity to shape a discipline and build a worldwide talent pool that will drive civilization forward. I can't think of anything more consequential for an academic mission to do.

In the last 25 years, UC San Diego has grown from about 20,000 students to more than 45,000, with maybe 50-plus thousand in its future. That is physical growth that people can see. It will naturally be accompanied by the intellectual and academic growth of the campus. We are part of that growth.

What are the biggest challenges the school is facing?

Well, higher education in the U.S. is currently facing multiple challenges from an evolving academic culture to economic challenges. In this environment, thinking about how to grow the academic enterprise is inherently challenging.

This presents a tough environment to build a new school, but it is also a time that presents its own opportunity to reinvent the university's relationship with industry, with society, with our own students, in a way that allows us to build a new school, provide value and create new intellectual academic products.

And on that count, I see massive new possibilities.

Learn more about research and education at UC San Diego in: Artificial Intelligence