The teams, whose proposed projects will use state-of-the-art data science to solve seemingly intractable societal problems in the fields of cancer research, medical science, transportation, astronomy and web technology, will each receive up to $100,000 for one year.

“Voices” is a new forum, launched by Jeannette Wing, Avanessians Director of Columbia's Data Science Institute and Professor of Computer Science, where members of the Institute publish their views and perspectives on data science.

“Placing guards around tree pits allows urban trees to absorb more storm water runoff, taking pressure off the city sewer system,” said the study’s senior author, Patricia Culligan, a professor at Columbia Engineering and a member of Columbia’s Earth Institute and Data Science Institute.

Shih-Fu Chang, senior executive vice dean, the Richard Dicker Professor of Telecommunications, and professor of electrical engineering and of computer science, has been named a 2017 Fellow of the Association for Computing Machinery.

“You can discover patterns, correlations and maybe even causal relationships that would be impossible to do manually,” said Jeannette Wing, the Avanessians Director of Columbia’s Data Science Institute and a professor of computer science.