The Cybersecurity Institute has joined forces with the Center for Data Science (CDS) to create Data Core, a new core facility at UMass. Data Core is a team of experienced software engineers and data scientists that are available to work with on-campus faculty as well as external partners on projects.
Just like the Cybersecurity Institute, CICS, and CDS, the focus of Data Core is projects that advance the common good. Faculty will be able to employ Data Core to build advanced systems as part of their grants and contracts, allowing their research to progress and transition to practice more easily than they can with students. The aim is to make our proposals more competitive by ensuring a greater real-world impact. As a core facility, outside entities can also outsource tasks to Data Core in the same way.
Data Core has experience building and deploying systems involving machine learning, data science, cloud systems, mobile apps, web apps, databases, forensics, security, and more. Six of the original eight full time staff that founded Data Core are part of the Cybersecurity Institute's Rescue Lab. Already, we have hired two more full staff to start in July 2022, and we have funding to recruit further. We are working on a small number of projects in summer, and we will announce more broadly to the faculty in CICS and other colleges in September 2022.