CERG, Agricultural Data Science

Degree Program Summary:

The modern agri-food system generates large amounts of structured and unstructured data in areas such as precision agriculture, crop and weather-based modeling, imaging and sensing, -omics technologies, and food consumer analytics, yet current graduates often lack the integrative skills to manage, mine, and interpret the resulting data streams. The purpose of the Agricultural Data Science certificate program is to produce graduates capable of bridging the gap between the generation, analysis, and interpretation of big data in the agricultural sector. Students with these skills will be critical for improving communication between data generators (agricultural and biological scientists) on the one hand, and data specialists (computer scientists and statisticians) on the other. Such interdisciplinary collaboration will enable the transformational innovations needed to develop solutions to meet future food and agriculture needs. As more and more companies in the agri-food sector are transforming themselves into data-driven enterprises, graduates from the Agricultural Data Science program will be in high demand.
Although many agricultural scientists receive statistical training in the analysis of field and laboratory experiments, they typically lack the integrative skills to manage, mine, and interpret big or less structured data streams. Drawing on UGA’s strength in the agricultural sciences and its campus-wide Informatics Initiative, we propose to develop a Graduate Certificate in Agricultural Data Science targeted toward degree-seeking graduate students in the agri-food sciences and aimed at producing graduates capable of bridging the gap between the generation, analysis, and interpretation of structured and unstructured agricultural data. The curriculum is highly interdisciplinary. Two required core courses integrate analytical approaches and case studies from a range of disciplines. A capstone seminar features intramural and invited speakers across disciplines and industries. Elective courses are drawn from four different colleges and two Institutes. The curriculum has been designed such that prerequisites for core and elective courses will not be prohibitive for students coming from a range of different disciplines and graduate majors.