Well-being of Kansans theme of annual data science conference
“We live in a world awash with data,” said Donna Ginther, Roy A. Roberts & Regents Distinguished Professor of Economics at the University of Kansas.
Ginther gave the keynote presentation last month at the third annual Kansas Data Science Conference.
About 140 students, educators, business leaders, and community members gathered in Lawrence for the conference to showcase data aimed at promoting the well-being of Kansans.
“Researchers in Kansas are leveraging this new era of information to improve the lives of Kansans,” Ginther said. She shared a slew of maps showing how each county fairs in terms of cancer, housing, education, and more. “Kansas may not have mountains or oceans, but it offers a quality of life that is unappreciated by the rest of the country.”
Jonathan Brumberg, psychology chairperson and professor at KU, gave the opening remarks.
“My journey encompasses what data science means,” Dr. Brumberg said. He combines engineering and neuroscience to study brain-machine interfaces that help people communicate.
The morning session had two tracks. One track was a tutorial on ArcGIS by Xan Wedel, senior research data engineer at KU. Her activity used Dodge City as an example, showing how to map housing and drought data to help guide emergency evacuations from wildfires.
The other track featured two different talks. Bekah Selby-Leach described Wichita State University's 50-year-old Center for Economic Development and Business Research. Greg Erickson and Jennifer Tidball spoke about Kansas State University’s new All Things Kansas tool for exploring data from all 105 counties.
Following the keynote, a panel of four business leaders discussed workforce needs in data science. This group is part of an Industry Advisory Board that shapes content for the conference and Community Data Labs, a flagship effort by the Kansas Data Science Consortium.
Community Data Labs bring real-world projects into college classrooms to enable students to hone data science skills. Dozens of businesses, non-profits, and government organizations contribute data, receiving data-driven solutions in return from the students.
For the past three years, students at K-State, KU, and WSU participated in Community Data Lab coursework. This year, the curricula expanded for the first time to Donnelly College, Baker University, Johnson County Community College, and Butler Community College.
About 70 students presented posters about their class projects at the data science conference this year, showcasing a range of results, from housing to childcare.
Six of the KU students also presented their posters at a pre-conference reception the night before, highlighting research from the ARISE project, a U.S. National Science Foundation Established Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (NSF EPSCoR). Since ARISE aims to bolster Kansas disaster response and resilience, these posters featured data about community assets, including religious congregations, newspapers, school funding, supermarkets, and libraries.
K-State Professor and ARISE researcher Jason Bergtold gave a talk at the reception about how he uses community studios to spark dialog between researchers and residents. KU graduate student Rebecca Wood also spoke about how she is designing a dashboard for Wyandotte County resilience.
The 2025 Kansas Data Science Conference spotlights talent in Kansas thanks to support from the ARISE project, now in its third year of a five-year effort to build capacity in Kansas where research can thrive.