Data Science Initiative — Chico State Skip to Main Content
California State University, Chico

Data Science Initiative

Chico State’s Data Science Initiative advances data education, research, and community engagement, offering workshops, consulting, and applied experiences that prepare learners for today’s data-driven careers.

Upcoming Events

Events through February 4, 2026
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There are no events scheduled within the next two weeks. Check out CatsConnect for more events.

Services and Activities

The services provide hands-on data skills training, free drop-in programming support, comprehensive research consulting, and specialized Wildcat Data Hub assistance in coding, data cleaning, visualization, and statistical or machine learning analysis for campus and community projects.

  • The campus community work on coding projects and answer questions as part of the Data Science Initiative (DSI) Community Coding sessions

    Technical Skills Workshops

    Short-term workshops and specialized training on data collection, visualization, statistical analysis, machine learning, and reproducible research, supporting learners from diverse backgrounds.

  • Math and data science help to student from professor

    Office Hours and Drop-in Support

    Free drop-in consultation and coding support aimed at college and community, focused on handling data.

    Primary Location: Meriam Library, Second Floor (next to the print center)
    Hours: See the Weekly Schedule

  • Students working together on a coding project

    Data Consulting and Research Support

    Support at every stage of data-enabled research, ranging from design studies, collection and importing/cleaning datasets, to doing analyses and reporting an assortment of projects.

  • Adviser pointing at screen

    Wildcat Data Hub Consulting

    A consulting service that supports researchers with programming, data preparation, analysis, visualization, and the development of clear research outcomes. Assistance is available through both free and fee-based options.

  • Community coding session

    Community Coding

    Short-term workshops and specialized training on data collection, visualization, statistical analysis, machine learning, and reproducible research, supporting learners from diverse backgrounds.

  • Room full of students sitting at round tables with computers in front of them.

    Data-Related Events and Seminars

    A year-round slate of events such as DataFest, workshops, and themed seminar series on topics like political modeling, clinical trials, social impact data science, graph theory, and causal inference, connecting learners with researchers and practitioners

  • Teacher presenting information from a dry erase board

    Student Internships and Applied Learning Opportunities

    Paid, hands-on internships allow students to work with faculty on real research and community projects, contributing to app development, data dashboards, sustainability research, and other applied data science work.

Relevant Academic Programs

  • Student working on a laptop during a coding class

    Data Science and Analytics MS

    As a graduate of Chico State’s master’s program in Data Science and Analytics, you’ll build the ability to find answers hidden inside troves of raw data. While the program is ideal for students with a background in statistics, computer science, business analytics, or other STEM fields, this degree serves any student devoted to making sense of hard-to-solve problems.

  • Laptop showing coding data.

    Data Science Certificate

    The Certificate in Data Science provides students with the technical skills to extract different types and quantities of data from multiple sources, create visualizations, build and interpret predictive models, and build data products for the information consumer to use under a background of responsible and ethical data management. The certificate is offered through both the Computer Science and Mathematics and Statistics departments.

Courses and Curriculum

This is a non-comprehensive list of all data-related classes at Chico. Contact us if there is a data science-related class not on this list.

  • Data Science

    • MATH/CSCI 385: Introduction to Data Science
    • MATH/CSCI 485: Advanced Topics in Data Science
    • MATH 490: Data Science Capstone

  • Mathematics and Statistics

    • MATH 317: Cryptography
    • MATH 314: Probability and Statistics
    • MATH 315: Applied Statistics I
    • MATH 456: Applied Statistics II
    • MATH 458: Sampling

  • Computer Science

    • CSCI 580: Artificial Intelligence
    • CSCI 581: Machine Learning
    • CSCI 582: Bioinformatics
    • In Development: Certificate in Machine Learning

  • Biology

    • BIOL 485: Bioinformatics for Biologists

  • Business Information Systems

    • BSIS 111: Digital Literacy
    • BSIS 308: Decision Analysis for Business
    • BSIS 460: Data Analytics
    • BSIS 610: Business Analytics
    • BSIS 625: Data Warehouse Systems

  • Political Science

    • POLS 421: Methods of Political Inquiry

About the Data Science Initiative (DSI)

The Data Science Initiative (DSI) at Chico State is a fledgling grassroots program, initiated in 2015 to develop the Data Science capabilities of our campus and community. By leveraging expertise across a wealth of disciplines including Statistics, Computer Science, Business, Biology, Nutrition, Mathematics, and Political Science, Chico State is well poised to become an educational and workforce training leader in the North State.

Our vision is to foster a data-empowered society working within a culture of open science.

  • Foster a supportive, inclusive, and diverse community for data science researchers, practitioners, learners, and enthusiasts.
  • Provide high quality data science education to learners from all backgrounds and domains.
  • Develop and support interdisciplinary teaching and research opportunities.
  • Emphasize the use of data in an accountable and transparent manner for the benefit of all persons.
  • Furthering the advancement of the algorithms and scientific methods to make decisions and extract insights from data.

  • Building relationships with community partners to build data-enabled solutions and provide high impact real world learning experiences for students.
  • Provide training on data privacy and security, responsible and ethical research, responsible, transparent and ethical uses of data and algorithms.
  • Provide learners with the skills and knowledge, and build and confidence to develop and implement data-driven solutions in an ethical and socially responsible manner.
  • Using multiple methods of training including
  • Traditional classroom and online curriculum
  • Workshops & specialized trainings
  • Interdisciplinary projects that engage learners from diverse sectors
  • Being a campus wide resource through Community Coding - an open work and support session.

Current Team