About

Data Science

Data Science now permeates research in nearly all disciplines. The pervasiveness of interconnectivity on our persons and in our homes, the capabilities of high-performance computers, the emergence of smart infrastructure, and the Internet of “everything” is changing the way we do research in nearly every field of study.

It is estimated that the amount of data produced over the next two years worldwide will be twice as much as humans generated since the dawn of civilization. In order to address this opportunity, the University of Florida recently created the Informatics Institute, a campus wide initiative aimed at putting our researchers at the forefront of rapid developments in data science and its applications. Its purpose is to facilitate leading edge informatics research across campus, focusing on informatics techniques and technologies as well as applications in biomedical and life science, engineered systems, the physical sciences, social science, humanities, and education.

Future informatics research here at UF will use genetic information to predict disease, analyze high-resolution satellite images to detail crop performance, and accelerate the computation of complex behavior in engineered systems. The Informatics Institute will engage the broad UF community and provide a significant advantage not only in the high tech business of computation and communication, but in health care, engineering design, retail, scientific discovery, and a multitude of other fields where the effective leveraging of massive data resources is vital to success in global competition.

Thrust Areas

Informatics Techniques and Technologies

  • Research into the hardware, software, algorithms, and mathematical approaches needed to develop the next generation techniques and technologies for Big Data. This also includes supporting infrastructure for computation, bandwidth, and storage.

Informatics in Biomedical and Life Sciences

Informatics for Engineered Systems and the Physical Sciences

  • Application of intense computation and complex informatics to understand and design complex engineered systems, and to uncover the fundamental nature of our physical world and universe.

Informatics in Social Science, Humanities, and Education

  • Leveraging the explosion of data in understanding people, culture, political development, education, and human behavior.