September 27, 2017
The National Science Foundation (NSF) has awarded MIT a multi-year grant to support collaborative research across mathematics, statistics, and computer science, with the goal of advancing the theoretical foundations of data science. The funding is provided through NSF’s “Transdisciplinary Research in Principles of Data Science” (TRIPODS) program Phase I, a $17.7 million initiative, designed to foster breakthrough discoveries in data science.
MIT is one of 12 universities receiving grants under Phase I of the TRIPODS program. Phase II will support a smaller number of universities, selected among the teams that have been awarded Phase I grants.
The MIT program will be led by its principal investigator, Piotr Indyk, a professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS), affiliated with CSAIL, and a member of CSAIL's Theory of Computation Group. Two of the co-principal investigators are members of the Laboratory for Information and Decision Systems (LIDS): Philippe Rigollet, a professor in the Department of Mathematics, and Devavrat Shah a professor in EECS. Rigollet and Shah are also affiliated with MIT’s Statistics and Data Science Center (SDSC), with Shah serving as its director, and are core members of the Institute for Data, Systems, and Society (IDSS). Additional co-principal investigators include Jonathan Kelner, a professor in the Department of Mathematics, and Ronitt Rubinfeld, a professor in EECS.
"This program is a great opportunity and a great match for MIT," said Shah. "TRIPODS will foster collaboration among faculty from three fields at MIT and create a platform for doing creative, groundbreaking work." Shah said that as part of the program, MIT will host a sequence of workshops to convene experts from other universities and foster innovative ideas.
For more information about this project, please see: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1740751