Governor, Woodriff among the speakers at the ceremony
Published
April 26, 2024
from
Kate Andrews
University of Virginia President James Ryan (left) shakes hands with the School of Data Science’s new founding dean, Philip E. Bourne, during a groundbreaking ceremony for the school’s first building on April 26. Photo by Kate Andrews/Virginia Business
Billed as a “school without walls,” the University of Virginia’s School of Data Science officially opened its first dedicated academic building on Friday, five years after the school began.
“I was a bit surprised and a bit disappointed to be honest when I came here yesterday for a tour and found out [school without walls] was just a metaphor, despite the practical need for walls,” U.Va. President Jim Ryan told an audience that included accomplished academics and businesspeople — such as Gov. Glenn Youngkin — as well as current and former data science students. “I hope the ‘school without walls’ theory continues to bring this place to life.”
Ryan, a former law school dean and attorney, said he was on a crash course to learn more about data science, which includes artificial intelligence, machine learning and other data collection methods, as well as the use of data in other sectors such as healthcare and finance. Because the field is moving so quickly and becoming “indispensable to almost any field,” Ryan said, he expects the new four-story, 61,000-square-foot facility on Ivy Road in Charlottesville to be a center for the latest research in the science of data.
Jaffray Woodriff, 1991 U.Va. alumnus who co-founded Quantitative Investment Management and made a $120 million endowment in 2019 with his wife, U.Va. alumnus Merrill Woodriff, who will establish the School of Data Science, also attended Friday’s ceremony. He said that as an 11-year-old boy in 1980, he became interested in baseball statistics.
“At the age of 18, after seven years of studying baseball, I switched my focus to the financial markets, applying statistical forecasting to the market,” Woodriff said. “This was my chance to solve the challenge I faced as a U.Va. first year [student], figure out what career I would really like – and solve the money problem. I knew that both challenges would be overcome if I could gamify investment management.”
Woodriff decided, with his father’s encouragement, to become an entrepreneur. In 2003, he and two co-founders started QIM, a Charlottesville-based hedge fund. He and his wife, another U.Va. alumnus, launched the Quantitative Foundation as a philanthropic vehicle through which they made a $120 million gift to U.Va., the university’s largest private endowment. The School of Data Science builds on earlier academic offerings of U.Va.’s Data Science Institute, which was established in 2013.
The new building — which replaces three sections of existing buildings at U.Va. where data science students and faculty members have been working since 2019—includes a large, two-story center and events area named after Capital One, which reached $2 million. Although much more modern than what many consider Jeffersonian, the school is designed for meetings and collaboration, with a variety of seating areas and a large atrium. There are also four adaptable classrooms.
Capital One’s chief scientist and head of corporate AI, Prem Natarajan, noted that the bank made its donation because U.Va. and other academic institutions invest in “inventions and discoveries. We also recognize the critical need to focus on STEM education to build a dynamic technology workforce both in Virginia and the nation.”
Youngkin noted that the School of Data Science, the first institution of its kind in Virginia, is “much more than the building. These are all the amazing minds that are here. Today we find ourselves in a world that seeks truth, that seeks insight. And when 90% of the world’s data is recreated every two years, there’s an opportunity for us to discover that truth, shine a light on those insights and, most importantly, lead.”
Phil Bourne, the school’s founding dean, said he works with community K-12 schools “to prepare them in the world of data literacy, for what’s coming if and when they come to U.Va. It really is about lifelong learning … in a field that is changing so dramatically and so quickly.”
Sunidhi Goyal, a Delhi University graduate pursuing a master’s degree at U.Va.’s data school, said she plans to work “somewhere at the intersection of health care and public policy. I want to use the skills I have gained from this program. It has a very interdisciplinary approach. The professors are from different backgrounds.”
And that’s important to Bourne and other faculty members. “I think we get really good researchers in part because they want to work in an interdisciplinary environment. They see that it creates real value.
