On Tuesday, February 26, SSC core faculty hooked up with invited UT faculty from diverse research areas and external guests in a unique data networking event: SSC Speed Data-ing. An original idea of Director Lauren Ancel Meyers, who admitted she thought of the idea while in the shower, the Valentine-themed “Speed Data-ing” event was created to spur research collaborations across UT and beyond.

“Speed Data-ing” brought together UT faculty and guests with interesting data from their research (“We got DATA!”) to mingle with SSC faculty with data analysis tools (“We got TOOLS!).

Director Meyers, who emceed, kicked off the event with a brief introduction of the Division of Statistics + Scientific Computation (SSC). SSC Consulting Manager Michael Mahometa gave an overview of the SSC Statistical Consulting program, and then each of the 18 invited participants gave a short presentation of his or her research or data analysis tools. After the individual presentations, the participants mingled in small groups of two to four people to discuss their projects further.

We collected data from the event in the form of a short survey, and on paper it appears that at least four matches were made. Statistically speaking, these “matches” are more complex than they might appear at first blush! However, five SSC Faculty (62.5%) and four external participants (66.7%) indicated that they were “Very likely” to take steps to collaborate with an individual they met at the event. What’s more, the remaining responders (100%) indicated that they were at least “Somewhat likely” to take collaborative steps with someone they met, and 100% also said that they enjoyed the event.

We would like to thank all the participants listed below.

SSC Internal Participants and Statisticians –We got TOOLS!

Lauren Ancel Meyers
Director, Division of Statistics + Scientific Computation (SSC)
and Professor, Section of Integrative Biology (IB)

Michael Mahometa
Consulting Manager, Division of Statistics + Scientific Computation (SSC)

Michael Daniels
Professor, Division of Statistics + Scientific Computation (SSC)
and Section of Integrative Biology (IB)

Peter Mueller
Professor, Division of Statistics + Scientific Computation (SSC)
and Department of Mathematics

Jonathan Pillow
Assistant Professor, Department of Psychology
and Section of Neurobiology

Pradeep Ravikumar
Assistant Professor, Division of Statistics + Scientific Computation (SSC)
and Department of Computer Science (CS)

James Scott
Assistant Professor, Division of Statistics + Scientific Computation (SSC)
and Department of Information, Risk, and Operations Management (IROM)

Abel Rodriguez
Harrington Faculty Fellow, Department of Mathematics
and Assistant Professor, University of California at Santa Cruz

External Participants—We got DATA!

David Beaver
Professor, Department of Linguistics

Christopher Beevers
Associate Professor, Department of Psychology
and Director, Institute for Mental Health Research

Simone Browne
Assistant Professor, Department of Sociology

Z. Jeffrey Chen
Professor, Section of Molecular Cell and Developmental Biology (MCDB)
and affiliated with the Center for Computational Biology and Bioinformatics (CCBB)

Zachary Elkins
Associate Professor, Department of Government

Mark Hayward
Director, Population Research Center (PRC)
and Professor, Department of Sociology

Vishwanath Iyer
Co-Director, Center for Systems & Synthetic Biology (CSSB),
Professor, Molecular Genetics & Microbiology (MGM),
and affiliated with the Institute for Cellular & Molecular Biology (ICMB)

Daniel T. Jaffe
Chair and Professor, Department of Astronomy

Christine Jesser
Senior Epidemiologist, Manager of Research Analytics, Analytics and Health Economics, Seton Healthcare Family

Max Shpak
Research Scientist, NeuroTexas Institute, St. David’s Medical Center

Sarah Tuttle
Postdoctoral Fellow, Department of Astronomy

Steven Warach
Professor and Cain Foundation Executive Director,
Seton/UT Southwestern Clinical Research Institute at Austin,
UT Southwestern Medical Center

We would also like to thank the SSC staff who were instrumental in organizing and coordinating the event:

Marilyn Harris, Administrative Associate, event coordinator
Vicki Keller, Administrative Manager, event advisor, booklet final editor, and technology operator
Jayne Medina, Sr. Administrative Associate, event set-up and tear-down
Lauren Ancel Meyers, Director, concept, flyer and booklet cover final design
Kathy Do, student worker, booklet and nametag design
Linda Liu, student worker, assistance with booklet editing

We would also like to thank caterer Upali Mallawa and East West Caters for his delicious and beautiful refreshments!