The 2023 CELEHS/HMS Data Science Summer Program kicked off with a bootcamp on Python programming and a session to start the construction of toy cars. Campers are thrilled to be back in person this year, with 15 attending from local Boston high schools, and 11 attending a satellite program in California running with the generous support of San Jose State University (SJSU) and Paypal. The two sites will be connected through lectures on machine learning and AI given by Associate Professor Junwei Lu, Biostats alum and Assistant Professor of Statistical Sciences at the University of Toronto Jesse Gronsbell, and Assistant Professor of Biomedical Informatics at Harvard Medical School, Kun-Hsing Yu.
In Boston students are learning with the support of Harvard sophomore Emily Gao and HMS grad student Michele Li who are leading exercises in programming and machine learning. On the California side, UC Berkeley senior and program alum Winston Cai, and SJSU Masters students Evan Yang and Thong Ngo are serving as program TAs.
Lunch speakers are a perennial favorite among camp participants. Today, students heard from Biostats alum Layla Parast about the path that led her to the Rand Corporation and eventually to a position as Associate Professor in Statistics and Data Sciences at the University of Texas in Austin. Stay tuned for developments towards the end of next week, as the students learn to program the cars to self-drive!
Department of Biostatistics
