Program Information

The College of Science’s Data Science program is an initiative which provides students the opportunity to receive comprehensive training in the exciting field of data science. The program is a joint effort bringing together faculty from all six of the College’s departments – Biology, Chemistry & Biochemistry, Earth & Environmental Sciences, Mathematics, Physics, and Psychology.

The College of Science (COS) Bachelor of Science (B.S.) degree in Data Science received approval from the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board on October 22, 2020. The COS Data Science program was created under the leadership of Dean Morteza Khaledi, former Associate Dean James Grover, senior Associate Dean Minerva Cordero, and a steering committee of COS faculty and staff. The program, led by Interim Director Amir Farbin, professor of physics, has offered courses since fall 2018 and debuted a minor in Data Science in fall 2020. The fall 2021 semester marks the program’s full implementation.

The goal of the program is to prepare students for challenges and careers in the 21st century. Given the ubiquity of data in all fields and disciplines and the increasingly important role that data science plays, knowledge and expertise in this field are essential. The College’s Data Science program features an integrated degree plan that incorporates data plus a science discipline that will educate students to use data science for solving problems in different areas of science.

The program is intended for students with interests in any of the fields of study represented in the College of Science, as well as from other colleges across UTA's diverse campus, who want to obtain training in modern principles and techniques of data-driven discovery. The field of data science is growing rapidly, and there is strong demand from employers for highly qualified professionals who can extract useful information from large amounts of complex data. The College’s bachelor degree and minor options can help students enhance their appeal even more as job candidates with potential employers,

The program will enable students to design and pursue analytical strategies and to reach meaningful results, interpretations, conclusions and recommendations, which they can communicate effectively in oral and written forms to diverse disciplinary audiences. Students will attain these skills while taking sufficient majors-level science courses within existing programs to be able to understand and frame problems in ways that are meaningful in context.

Students interested in a Data Science B.S. degree or minor are encouraged to enroll in the DATA-prefix courses in the UTA Course Catalog and to talk with their academic advisor.