The Peter Salovey and Marta Moret Data Science Fellows Program will foster a community of Ph.D. students working in interdisciplinary data science fields.
It may get lost sometimes in the torrent of news about algorithms, AI agents, and advances in computing, but the future of data science will pivot on the collaborations of people. A new Yale program aims to help shape and support that community of researchers for the next generation.
The Peter Salovey and Marta Moret Data Science Fellows Program, which launches in the spring 2026 semester, will offer mentoring, professional development, and outreach opportunities for an interdisciplinary cohort of doctoral students. The support will complement the students’ ongoing Ph.D. training and encourage engagement with a wider community of scholars addressing the challenges facing science and society where data science plays a critical role.
“The field of data science has enormous potential to transform our world,” said Lynn Cooley, dean of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences (GSAS), who championed the program’s creation. “Ph.D. students fuel the research taking place across the university. We wanted to create a cross-disciplinary community of students and faculty from across Yale who are applying data science to a range of fields, facilitating the serendipitous exchanges that can lead to breakthrough discoveries.”
The program is a collaboration between the GSAS and the Yale Institute for Foundations of Data Science (Yale FDS). Yale FDS, a hub for interdisciplinary data science collaborations on campus, will administer the program, which is funded by an anonymous alumni donor.
Dan Spielman, Sterling Professor of Computer Science at Yale School of Engineering & Applied Science, professor of statistics and data science and of mathematics in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS), and the James A. Attwood Director of FDS, said the new program aligns “wonderfully” with FDS.
“A central goal of the institute is to facilitate collaboration between those with applied data science problems and those who develop the mathematical, statistical, and computational foundations of data science,” Spielman said. “This program will place doctoral students at the center of these collaborations.”
The program will include about 20 Ph.D. students, all of whom will be eligible for funding to support travel to conferences and workshops, participation in outreach events, and access to data storage and advanced research computing. A subset of participants will receive up to two years of stipend and tuition support.
All students in the program will enroll in a dedicated seminar on data science at Yale — organized as guest lectures by leading researchers across the university — and a course that complements their home Ph.D. program (such as a course in an application outside of their primary research focus).
The program is named for former Yale President Peter Salovey, Sterling Professor of Psychology, and Marta Moret, Yale’s former First Lady. During his tenure as Yale president, Salovey oversaw an expansion of data science resources on campus and supported data-driven research as a university priority.
In addition to required coursework, students in the new program will participate in a wide range of events and community outreach opportunities. Events will include poster sessions, oral presentations, professional development workshops, and research seminars. Community engagement activities will include mentoring undergraduate students, organizing outreach events at local schools, and teaching in the Big Data Summer Immersion undergraduate summer program led by Bhramar Mukherjee, senior associate dean for data science in the Yale School of Public Health.
“I am thrilled to have the opportunity to help build an intellectually dynamic and socially aware community, practicing data science with rigor, ethics, and humanism,” Mukherjee said. “I am particularly excited about the planned outreach efforts of our fellows in the community around us.”
During the inaugural year, Mukherjee will co-chair the program’s steering committee with John Lafferty, the John C. Malone Professor of Statistics and Data Science in FAS. Lafferty said the program is “a unique way to build community and collaboration among Ph.D. students, while also expanding on the training they receive in their home departments. This will bring new energy and cohesiveness to the Yale data science community — which touches virtually every area of scholarship.”
Added Cooley: “Our new data science program gives students the opportunity to learn from one another, develop technical and collaborative skills, and to bring fresh perspectives to complex problems.
“By investing in our students this way, we are preparing them not only to advance scholarship, but also to shape the future of data science across academia, industry, and society,” she said.
Applications for the program will open March 1, 2026.
Currently the physics department has six faculty members who are collaborators in the Yale Institute for the Foundations of Data Science: Damon Clark, Associate Professor of Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology and of Physics and of Neuroscience; Joe Howard, Eugene Higgins Professor of Molecular Biophysics & Biochemistry; Professor of Physics; Christopher Lynn, Assistant Professor of Physics; Daisuke Nagai, Professor of Physics and Astronomy; Priyamvada Natarajan, Professor of Astronomy and of Physics; and Meg Urry, Israel Munson Professor of Physics and Astronomy.
This story was adapted from the Yale News story of September 30, 2025, by Jim Shelton.