U.Va. opens School of Data Science building

Billed as a “school without walls,” the University of Virginia’s School of Data Science officially inaugurated its first dedicated academic building Friday, five years after the school started.

“I was a little surprised and somewhat disappointed, if I’m being honest, when I came here yesterday for a tour and I realized [school without walls] was just a metaphor, in spite of the practical need for walls,” U.Va. President Jim Ryan said to an audience including  accomplished academics and businesspeople — such as Gov. Glenn Youngkin — as well as current and former data science students. “My hope is that the theory of ‘school without walls’ continues to animate this place.”

Ryan, a former law school dean and attorney, said he’s been on a speed course to learn more about data science, which includes artificial intelligence, machine learning and other data collection methods, as well as data use in other sectors, such as health care and finance. Because the field is moving so fast and becoming “indispensable for almost every field,” Ryan said, he expects the new four-story, 61,000-square-foot facility on Ivy Road in Charlottesville to be a hub of the latest research into data science.

Jaffray Woodriff, a 1991 U.Va. graduate who co-founded Quantitative Investment Management and made a $120 million donation in 2019 with his wife, U.Va. alumna Merrill Woodriff, to start the School of Data Science, also was on hand for Friday’s ceremony. He said that as an 11-year-old boy in 1980, he became interested in data from baseball statistics.

“At the age of 18, after seven years of studying baseball, I switched my focus to financial markets, applying statistical prediction to the market,” Woodriff said. “That was my chance to solve the challenge I faced as a U.Va. first-year [student], figuring out what career I would truly enjoy — and solve that money thing. I knew both challenges would be conquered if I could gamify investment management.”

Woodriff decided, with his father’s encouragement, to become an entrepreneur. In 2003, he and two co-founders started QIM, a Charlottesville-based hedge fund. He and his wife, another U.Va. graduate, started the Quantitative Foundation as a philanthropic vehicle, through which they made the $120 million gift to U.Va., the university’s largest private donation. The School of Data Science builds upon earlier academic offerings at U.Va.’s Data Science Institute, which was established in 2013.

The new building — which replaces three sections of existing buildings at U.Va. where data science students and faculty members have worked since 2019 — includes a large, two-story hub and event area named for Capital One, which chipped in $2 million. Although it’s much more modern than what many consider Jeffersonian, the school is designed for meeting and collaboration, with variable seating arrangements and a large atrium. There are also four adaptable classrooms.

Capital One’s chief scientist and head of enterprise AI, Prem Natarajan, noted that the bank made its donation because U.Va. and other academic institutions invest in “invention and discovery. We recognize also the critical need to focus on STEM education to build a dynamic technology workforce both in Virginia and indeed the nation.”

Youngkin noted that the School of Data Science, the first such institution established in Virginia, is “much more than the building. It is all of the amazing minds that are here. We sit in a world today that is seeking truth, that is seeking insight. And when 90% of the world’s data is recreated every two years, there is an opportunity for us to find that truth, to shed light on those insights and, most importantly, to lead.”

Phil Bourne, the school’s founding dean, said it is working with community K-12 schools “to prepare them in the world of data literacy, for what’s coming if and when they come to U.Va. It’s really about lifelong learning … in a field that’s changing so dramatically so quickly.”

Sunidhi Goyal, a University of Delhi alumna who is pursuing a master’s degree at U.Va.’s data science school, said she plans to work “somewhere in the intersection of health care and public policy. I want to use the skills that I’ve taken from this program. It has a very interdisciplinary approach. The professors are from various backgrounds.”

And that’s important to Bourne and other faculty members as well. “I think we’re getting some really good researchers partly because they want to operate in an interdisciplinary environment. They see that creates real value.”