Pacific Excellence in Analytics through Research and Learning in Data Science

Chaminade University Of Honolulu, Honolulu HI

Investigators

Abstract

This project will contribute to the national need for well-educated scientists, mathematicians, engineers, and technicians by supporting the retention and graduation of high-achieving, low-income students with demonstrated financial need. Specifically, this project at Chaminade University of Honolulu will provide scholarships to 20 students pursuing a bachelor’s degree in data science. Themed around using Pacific data to solve Pacific problems, the project aims to empower students to find data-driven solutions to challenges in the Pacific basin. To do so, it will implement project-based courses and internships centered on data provided by a coalition of businesses, agencies, and community and grassroots organizations. The project expects to produce a cohort of Pacific data science professionals who will enter regional research and professional practice, as well as contribute to a data-driven culture of decision support across Hawai'i’s economic sectors. The goals of the project are to: (1) Mitigate financial and academic barriers to data science participation for high talent, low-income Pacific students; (2) Acknowledge and address cultural and non-academic barriers to STEM persistence and attainment faced by Pacific students; and (3) Develop new curricular and extracurricular best practices that reflect data science training aligned with student needs, strengths, and cultural expectations. Layered curricula will address direct and meta-academic outcomes by emphasizing coding skills from Python to AI, decision support, data visualization, data ethics, and data communication. The project will contribute to STEM education knowledge through the development of an adapted suite of new high impact practices that will connect a data science program to Pacific epistemology. The project intends to develop connections between students, place, community, and employers, with the goal of mitigating Hawai'i’s talent drain. The project will conduct research to explore integration, separation, and synergism of Pacific cultural and Western approaches to STEM learning. This project is funded by NSF’s Scholarships in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics program, which seeks to increase the number of low-income academically talented students with demonstrated financial need who earn degrees in STEM fields. It also aims to improve the education of future STEM workers, and to generate knowledge about academic success, retention, transfer, graduation, and academic/career pathways of low-income students. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.