Lucy Family Institute for Data & Society

Humanity-centered, data-driven, and adventurously collaborative.

Dear Friends,

Data-driven and domain-informed innovation holds the promise of transforming almost every facet of our lives.

At the Lucy Family Institute for Data & Society, we are passionately committed to pioneering advancements in data science and artificial intelligence (AI) as a force for good. Our mission is to foster convergence and interdisciplinary research, inspire actionable solutions, and cultivate educational programs that tackle society’s most pressing challenges head-on. We aim to ethically address society’s wicked problems, serving as an innovative nexus where academia, industry, and the public sector intersect. By fostering access to data science and AI, we will strengthen diverse and inclusive capacity building within communities.

Our vision is to become the preeminent intellectual beacon, inspiring collaborative, equitable, and impactful data and AI innovations as a global force for good.

Guided by the University’s mission, we partner with institutions locally and globally to support equitable innovation through groundbreaking research and translational implementation. The Institute’s centers and labs, including the Applied Analytics and Emerging Technology Lab, Center for Social Science Research, Civic Innovation Lab, Data Inference Analytics and Learning Lab, Geospatial Analysis and Learning Lab, and the Health Equity Data Lab offer distinct opportunities for collaboration to drive impact.

We are committed to developing educational and training opportunities in socially responsible data science and AI for our undergraduate students through our flagship National Science Foundation-funded iTREDS program, for graduate students through our Lucy graduate scholars program, and for K-12 students through our SEEDS program. We are also enabling upskilling opportunities for our organizational and people partners in emergent topics of AI through workshops and the novel RAISEUp program.

Through engaging conversations with national and international experts, we hope to inspire ideas that connect data with innovations to positively transform lives and society. Join us for sessions including the Soc(AI)ety Seminars, the Life in Pixels series, and Data Poetics as we explore the exciting possibilities of data science and AI.

If you would like to learn more about work within the Lucy Family Institute for Data & Society generally, please subscribe to the weekly Lucy Institute for Data & Society newsletter.

Respectfully,

Nitesh V. Chawla, Ph.D.
Founding Director, Lucy Family Institute for Data & Society
Frank M. Freimann Professor of Computer Science & Engineering
University of Notre Dame

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