On October 30, 2025, the Data Science Institute celebrated the opening of its new home at 5460 S. University Avenue with the industry partners, community organizations, and philanthropic supporters who power its work.

The new space represents both a milestone and a commitment to the DSI’s future. Since its founding, the DSI has grown to serve 850 students annually, support 70+ faculty and 30+ postdocs, and maintain over 60 active partnerships across industry, academia, and social impact. With dedicated areas for collaborative research, student work, and public programming, the new building will support the DSI’s continued expansion.

The celebration provided an opportunity for partners to connect with DSI faculty, students, and each other while exploring how they can help shape the Institute’s next chapter through research collaborations, student engagement, and philanthropic support.

An Evening of Innovation

The evening showcased how the DSI’s interdisciplinary environment and partnerships create fertile ground for innovation in Chicago and beyond.

Faculty Co-Director Mike Franklin highlighted the DSI’s role in fueling Chicago’s startup ecosystem. Several ventures have grown directly from campus research, and that momentum is accelerating. With Illinois a major generator of engineering talent at the PhD level nationally, the region’s growing appeal to tech companies is no surprise. Case in point: Alchemist, a Bay Area deep tech accelerator, recently launched Alchemist Chicago in partnership with UChicago and received over 400 applications for its inaugural startup cohort, which launched 27 new startups in October 2025.

Faculty lightning talks demonstrated pioneering research that advances data science fundamentals while creating pathways for real-world impact. Assistant Professor Mina Lee presented her work on human-AI interaction, exploring how to design AI systems that mitigate risks like bias while enabling creative outputs. Assistant Professor Haifeng Xu presented Prophet Arena, a benchmarking platform to evaluate AI forecasting capabilities—an example of how fundamental research questions lead to practical tools with broad applications.

Why Partnerships Matter

Partnerships spanning industry, government, and community organizations power the DSI’s ability to advance research while delivering real-world impact.

Industry partnerships enable the DSI to advance cutting-edge research while training the next generation of data scientists. Through collaborations with companies including Google, Invenergy, Promega, Millennium, and Morningstar, DSI faculty and students work on challenges, ranging from analyzing social media sentiment to inform financial strategies, to modeling wind energy production with AI.

Social impact partnerships also form a core part of the DSI’s mission. With support from Schmidt Sciences’ 11th Hour Project, the Walton Family Foundation, and others, the DSI collaborates with organizations with local impact, like the City of Chicago and Xchange Chicago, and global organizations like the International Rescue Committee, on projects ranging from housing affordability analysis to food access visualization to corporate supply chain transparency.

The new building itself represents an investment in this collaborative vision, and continued support will enable the DSI to expand the spaces and programs that bring these partnerships to life.

“Our goal is to build an ecosystem where innovation flows naturally between campus and the wider world,” said David Uminsky, Executive Director of the DSI. “This new space enables us to come together—faculty, students, and partners—to work on the challenges that matter most.”

Join Us

Organizations can engage with the DSI through:

• Our Industry Affiliates Program: Access to research, talent pipeline, and networking
• Philanthropic Partnerships: Support the DSI’s social impact work, student programs, initiatives expanding access to data science education, and the continued development of collaborative spaces such as the new building
• Research Partnerships: Joint initiatives with faculty to address critical challenges
• Event Participation: Chicago Data Night, Distinguished Speaker Series, and more

To explore partnership opportunities, contact Anne Brown at annebrown@uchicago.edu.