Among the student volunteers from the University was John DiMattio ’29, a computer science major from Jefferson Township. Last year, DiMattio was a competitor at the event in his senior year at Scranton Prep.
“I did it last year because I like to code, so I wanted to use another coding language and see what data science is like,” DiMattio said. “It gave me an insight to what this is, especially since I have to take data structure next year. So, it kind of gives a little sneak peek into what I’m to expect as a computer science major.”
Data Science Day included data processing tutorials, individual and team competitions and a keynote address by Stephen Sorokanich, a Quantum Fellow with the Air Force Research Laboratory.
The competition offered a structured, beginner-friendly environment to learn high-demand skills that could be used to analyze and visualize complex data, create predictive models, identify unusual patterns and automate tasks, among other things.
Volunteering alongside DiMattio was Jackson Conti ’27, a computer science major from Pottstown.
“After I’d taken some data science classes with Dr. Klobusicky, I realized that this was something that I was extremely interested in. I wanted to help out where I could,” Conti said. “For me, (I’m interested in) the wide range of applications where you could apply data science. There’s no shortage of where you could apply it: sociology, philosophy, psychology, economics. There’s really nowhere you can’t apply it.”