By: Cormac Rea
Photos: Harry Choi Photography
The data science community gathered for the Data Sciences Institute’s hugely popular Data Science Research Day on October 1 — a celebration of the fusion of data, innovation, and collaboration — for a program packed with engaging lightning talks, poster sessions, discussions, networking activities and interactive panels.
Providing a platform for the DSI community to showcase their work and cultivate connections with collaborators from academia, industry, and government, the day began with a captivating keynote address delivered by Dr. Stefaan Verhulst on the topic of Navigating the Emergent Data Winter: Reimagining Data Access and Stewardship in the AI Era.
Verhulst outlined a set of complex challenges for policy creators, decision-makers, and consumers in an increasingly “datafied” world, speaking to broad issues such as data asymmetries, systematic, sustainable, and responsible data collaborations, and what steps can be taken to prevent a future “data winter.”
“We have to reimagine the whole question and decision life-cycle [in data science],” said Verhulst. “What are the best questions to be asking? And we will also need to build the human infrastructure with a new generation of data stewards.”
“In fact, we need a new paradigm of data stewardship,” concluded Verhulst. “So that we can move from data to decision intelligence. We often gain insight, but then nobody uses it. Can we perhaps advance the process with decision accelerator labs?”
The Research Day itinerary also featured a series of enlightening lightning talks under the theme, Research Software for Impact. Each speaker presented on their research, how the software support their research, the tool itself, and finally the outcome, impact or primary use.
The panel included presenters: Jo Bovy (Professor and Canada Research Chair in Galactic Astrophysics, Department of Astronomy & Astrophysics, University of Toronto); Gregory Schwartz (Scientist, Princess Margaret Cancer Centre, University Health Network; Professor of Medical Biophysics, University of Toronto; Canada Research Chair in Bioinformatics and Computational Biology), and Areti Angeliki Veroniki (Scientist, Knowledge Translation Program, St. Michael’s Hospital, Unity Health Toronto, Institute of Health Policy Management and Evaluation, Dalla Lana School of Public Health, University of Toronto).
This lightning talk showcased several exciting research projects supported through the DSI Research Software Development Support award. Topics explored included open-source galaxy classification and segmentation apps, an interactive “tree” of single-cell relationships, and a software tool to help expediate health records between health clinicians.
“It is fascinating to learn the various ways the DSI Research Software support program is being used to translate and share real “research software for impact,” said Lisa Strug, Director, Data Sciences Institute.
During the networking lunch, the DSI community also had the opportunity to mingle, engage with, and explore the excellent work of DSI students and trainees who presented their research via posters.
The posters covered a wide array of projects, showcasing the diversity of research within the DSI community. Among the poster presenters was DSI Graduate Doctoral Fellow, Madeline Bonsma-Fisher, who shared her work entitled Exploring the geographical equity-efficiency trade-off in cycling infrastructure planning.
“It has been awesome to see all the different work that the DSI supports, the variety of fields and disciplines,” said Bonsma-Fisher. “You really get different ideas here than you would if you were just in your own research silo.”
“I have a background in a very different field, in biophysics, and I work on transportation, so I understand there is a different value in bringing all of these fields together today. I love that I get to see at a high level what people are working on in different areas.”
Another set of intriguing lightning talks opened the afternoon program, with the topic discussion Research to Impact featuring: Sara Allin (Associate Professor, Institute of Health Policy, Management and Evaluation, Dalla Lana School of Public Health, University of Toronto); Robert Batey (Professor, Department of Chemistry, University of Toronto); Brice Batomen Kuimi (Assistant Professor, Epidemiology, Dalla Lana School of Public Health), and Bree McEwan (Associate Professor, Institute for Communication, Culture, and Information Technology, University of Toronto Mississauga).
All of the speakers were supported by DSI funding and the researchers spoke to a variety of projects and how the DSI funding was leveraged to garner external funding and impact public policy. Research projects included: Canadian newcomers and immigrants with diabetes encountering difficulty accessing supportive info and affordable medicine, a DSI seeded project to develop new molecules and a Pan-Canadian Chemistry library, and another DSI funded project that leverages image recognition algorithms to develop a comprehensive database detailing installation of traffic calming measures across major Canadian cities.
“I work in data science and I came to this event because I was interested in the different approaches people take to tackle similar problems,” said Olexiy Pukhov, a student studying pharmacy and data science at University of Toronto’s Leslie Dan Faculty of Pharmacy.
“I’ve been exposed to new ideas that I can utilize in my own research to further improve the outcomes that I obtain. There were some very interesting ideas and new methods today that I hadn’t thought about before. Research Day was very useful to me! I learned a lot about innovative ideas and it has armed me with new tools in my toolbox to solve data science problems.”
Research Day concluded with a compelling panel discussion on Translating Data for Decision-Making that aligns with the DSI’s Policy Lab initiative.
Panelists from a broad range of sectors including government, hospitals and research institutes, including: Michael Hillmer (Assistant Deputy Minister, Digital Analytics and Strategy Division, Ministry of Health and Ministry of Long-Term Care, Ontario Public Service); Lillian Sung (Canada Research Chair in Pediatric Oncology Supportive Care, Division of Haematology/Oncology, Chief Clinical Data Scientist, The Hospital for Sick Children); Amol Verma (Clinician-Scientist, St. Michael’s Hospital, and Assistant Professor, Temerty Professor of AI Research and Education in Medicine, University of Toronto), and Linbo Wang (Associate Professor, Department of Computer and Mathematical Sciences, University of Toronto Scarborough).
Panelists discussed a variety of perspectives and solutions to big questions, such as: How can one best set up a data sciences entity within a health organization? How do the healthcare sector decision makers get influenced by the data that is available?
The Data Sciences Institute extends heartfelt thanks to all of its funding partners for their support in making Research Day possible. The inspirational day was a testament to DSI’s mandate to help shape the evolution of the data science field and the University of Toronto’s leadership role in it, bringing data science to new domains, new industries, not-for-profits and to government.