This concentration will equip students to learn about the world through data analytics.

The core course related to this concentration is INFO 2950: Introduction to Data Science.

Some faculty members whose research is related to this concentration include: Solon Barocas, Cristobal Cheyre, Paul Ginsparg, Thorsten Joachims, René Kizilcec, Jon Kleinberg, Lillian Lee, David Mimno; Helen Nissenbaum, Jeff Rzeszotarski, Matthew Wilkens, Aditya Vashistha, and David Williamson. 

Career Paths

  • Professional positions requiring data analytics and statistical analysis combined with communication in commercial, academic and public service settings. 
  • Ex: Data Journalist, who finds questions in the real world, collects and analyzes data to address that question, and then explains the implications of that analysis in accessible terms.
  • Related Job Titles: data scientist, statistician, data engineer, machine learning engineer

Data Science Courses

Please reference the Cornell Class Roster for details on the courses below.

Data Science (Fall 2021, 2022, and 2023):  Take one course from A, B, and C; and an additional course from any of the four categories. 

A. Data Analysis (choose one)

  • INFO 3300: Data-Driven Web Applications
  • ​INFO 3900: Causal Inference
  • INFO 3950: Data Analytics for Information Science
  • CS 4780: Machine Learning for Intelligent Systems
  • CS 4786: Machine Learning for Data Science
  • ORIE 3120: Practical Tools for Operations Research, Machine Learning and Data Science
  • ORIE 4740: Statistical Data Mining I
  • ORIE 4741: Learning with Big Messy Data
  • STSCI 4740: Data Mining and Machine Learning

B. Domain Expertise (choose one) 

  • INFO 2770: Excursions in Computational Sustainability
  • INFO 3350: Text Mining for History and Literature
  • INFO 3370: Studying Social Inequality Using Data Science
  • INFO 4100: Learning Analytics
  • INFO 4120: Ubiquitous Computing
  • INFO 4300: Language and Information
  • INFO 4350: Conversations and Information
  • INFO 4940: Special Topics - How LLMs work, Their Potential, and Limitations
  • CS 4740: Natural Language Processing

C. Big Data Ethics, Policy and Society (choose one) 

  • INFO 3200: New Media and Society
  • INFO 3561: Computing Cultures
  • INFO 4145 (Previously INFO 4940): Privacy and Security in the Data Economy
  • INFO 4200: Information Policy: Applied Research and Analysis
  • INFO 4240: Designing Technology for Social Impact
  • INFO 4250: Surveillance and Privacy
  • INFO 4260 (Previously INFO 4940): Computing on Earth: Planetary Dimensions and Consequence of Computing
  • INFO 4270: Ethics and Policy in Data Science
  • INFO 4561: Stars, Scores, and Rankings: Evaluation and Society
  • INFO 4940: Special Topics - U.S. Copyright Law
  • ​INFO 4940: Special Topics - Technology and Social Change Practicum
  • INFO 4940: Special Topics - Building Inclusive Computing Organizations
  • COMM 4242: The Design & Governance of Field Experiments
  • ENGL 3778: Free Speech, Censorship, and the Age of Global Media
  • STS 3440: The Data Science & Society Lab

D. Data Communication (choose one) 

  • INFO 3312: Data Communication
  • INFO 4310: Interactive Information Visualization
  • COMM 3150: Organizational Communication: Theory and Practice
  • COMM 3189: Taking America's Pulse: Creating and Conducting a National Opinion Poll
  • COMM 4200: Public Opinion and Social Processes
  • COMM 4860: Risk Communication
  • GOVT 2169: Survey Data in the Information Age
  • SOC 3580: Big Data on the Social World