What is the Summer Institute in Biostatistics and Data Science program?

Sponsored by the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute (NHLBI): HL161795-03

The Summer Institute in Biostatistics (SIBS) and Data Science is sponsored jointly by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI) and the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID).

The comprehensive six to seven week summer training course on biostatistics and principles of data science combines classroom learning with career mentoring and hands-on data analysis using data collected from clinical studies in prevention and treatment of infectious, immune-mediated, and chronic diseases.

Designed to address a growing imbalance between the demand and supply for biostatisticians and data scientists, the course targets undergraduates and beginning graduate students who are interested in learning about biostatistics, and encourages them to consider graduate programs related to biostatistics and data science.

The typical curricula include an intensive introduction to biostatistical approaches and research by exposing participants to the principles, methodologies, uses, and applications of statistical methods in biomedical and clinical research.

What is special about the Big Data Summer Immersion at Yale?

The Big Data Summer Immersion at Yale (BDSY), is an intensive, interdisciplinary program that equips undergraduate students with the skills to utilize the power of big data for human health. Combining expertise from biostatistics, statistics, epidemiology, engineering, and computer science, with pressing challenges in human health, BDSY offers a truly unique learning experience.

After ten outstandingly successful years at the University of Michigan, the SIBS program is launching at the Yale School of Public Health. Yale University, with its rich landscape of teaching, research and practice in data science and health, provides a perfect setting to launch this program in the summer of 2025. The students will stay in the beautiful residential colleges at Yale University campus. Lectures and project work will largely take place in the Yale School of Public Health.

Undergraduate trainees joining this six-week immersion program will go through preparatory bootcamp in R, Python and Statistical learning in the first two weeks. Each morning, they will attend didactic lectures by stellar faculty in biostatistics, epidemiology, statistics, computer science, biomedical data science and each afternoon they will work in small groups on mentored research projects, supported by graduate students and faculty mentors. Public health, medicine, social science and policy researchers will share their perspectives on using data science for improving human health. Throughout the program, the students will attend professional development workshops and have an opportunity to bond over social events. At the end of six weeks, they will present their research in a concluding symposium through posters and oral presentations.