Nikita Desir and Kyra Ann Dawkins Winning Team at DSI’s Student Course Project Competition

March 11, 2021 – Achievements

Nikita Desir (ICLS Major) and Kyra Ann Dawkins (ICLS class of 2020) formed one of 5 winning teams at the Columbia Data Science Institute’s Best Data Science Course Project Competition with their project “The Columbia Language Justice Perspectives Project.”

The student teams that presented during this inaugural competition event were selected as finalists by the DSI Education Working Group committee from among many impressive nominations. Following the presentations, a panel of esteemed faculty from across Columbia’s campuses served as judges. Finalists competed across several judging criteria, such as creative use of data science; potential societal impact; and alignment with DSI’s “Data for Good” mission.

This event provided a snapshot of how Columbia students are applying data science across many disciplines including computer science, electrical engineering, statistics, public health, comparative literature, and more. Successful student teamwork, problem solving, and innovation in data science methods was highlighted.

This event was chaired and moderated by Tian Zheng, Professor and Department Chair of Statistics, Columbia University; and Co-Chair of the DSI Education Working Group.

Please see the Columbia Data Science Institute’s website for more information.



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