The DataLab was created to give UW Information School students hands-on, real world experience in the rapidly expanding field of data science and data analytics. Popularly referred to as “big data,” it’s the science of combing through large-scale data sets to identify quantitative insights and conclusions on why individuals, consumers, and societies behave the way they do. Stakeholders in the public and private sectors increasingly look to data analytics to make informed decisions in the 21st Century.

The stakes are high for employers, which makes career opportunities rife for students. According to a 2011 report from global management and consulting firm McKinsey & Company titled “Big data: The next frontier for innovation, competition, and productivity,” by the year 2018 the U.S. faces a projected shortage of between 140,000 and 190,000 people with deep analytical skills. On top of that, the additional shortage of managers and the like with the business-savvy needed to effectively apply the findings of these analysts is expected to be roughly 1.5 million.

That translates to a LOT of high-paying jobs. “It’s just a huge, growing industry,” says iSchool Assistant Professor Joshua Blumenstock, who co-founded the DataLab in the summer of 2013, along with follow Assistant Professors Emma Spiro and Jevin West.

According to Blumenstock, the DataLab’s core activity is research, giving iSchool undergraduate, masters, and Ph.D. students hands-on, practical experience that augments their theoretical classwork. “The courses are really nurtured by the DataLab,” says Blumenstock. “Students get the formal exposure and training through the courses, and then experience in what it really means to do research through the DataLab.”

The DataLab also encourages students to personally interact and engage around common issues relating to data analytics, thereby fostering a robust community within the iSchool. This is further augmented by the DataLab’s recurring “Data Seminars,” thought-provoking presentations by prominent speakers from around the world.

The opportunity of garnering real-world experience is especially appealing to students. Ramkumar Chokkalingam is among several MSIM students working on projects centered around the analysis of mobile phone activity—work that earned the DataLab a Google Research Award and an Intel Early Career Award. Using data sourced from Afghanistan, students look at how millions of people respond to important geopolitical events and natural disasters, while at the same time dealing with critical ancillary issues such as maintaining privacy. According to Chokkalingam, the work represents a challenge that course exercises cannot always mimic. “In academic assignments, there is always going to be a solution; you do it four or five ways until you reach the solution,” he says. “But that will not be the same in research. You have to do some [creative] work to get there—which is partly learning and partly fun.”

Fellow MSIM student Joshua Cherian Manoj concurs. “In reality, data is never clean—you’ve got to clean it yourself,” he explains. “There’s also always missing data, and data that is not recording properly. So you’re overcoming real problems, not just theoretical problems.”

Employers recognize the distinction. All of the students interviewed for this story report extremely positive responses to their DataLab work when interviewing for post-graduation jobs. “I told them about the research I was doing with the DataLab, and they were quite impressed, because I was able to fulfill the expectations of the industry,” says MSIM student Vijay Shridhar Gaikwad. “The real-world experience helped me a lot. I showed them some of my work, some of the concepts I had learned in the DataLab project, and these transferred very well to their job requirements. It was such a good match that they hired me.”

Manoj agrees, noting that he received three separate job offers as a result of his work in the DataLab. “These kinds of projects are real eye-catchers,” he says. “They see it on your resume, they want to talk to you.”

This represents a common thread: three of the four students interviewed for this story have already received job offers prior to graduation. “We can sort of be the matchmakers between these really talented students and the employers that want to hire them,” says Assistant Professor Jevin West. “These students can go into their interview and show an employer, ‘here’s what I built, here’s the problems I solved.’ That has a huge, huge value for employers.”

For Anikate Singh, the appeal of his work in the DataLab is not just identifying patterns in the data, but communicating them in meaningful way. Singh spent five years in the private sector before coming to the iSchool for his masters, meaning he already had hands-on experience. While definitely interested in mastering the new cutting-edge technologies used in the lab, Singh was particularly drawn by the opportunity to develop skills in decision-making and management.

“I definitely see these projects not only from a technology perspective, but from a value-proposition perspective,” says Singh. “It’s always necessary to quantitatively define the value of the work in terms that enable other people to understand that what we are doing is useful. That means figuring out what sort of information can be useful to, say, a policy maker in the United Nations, or maybe at a charity foundation.”

Remember those 1.5 million managers referenced earlier in the McKinstry report? Singh is essentially talking about them. “At some point, when we have some results, I would have to present them in a story, a compelling story, which will convince them that the work we have done has value.”

Thanks in part to the DataLab, big data analytics have taken firm root in the iSchool. The school will begin offering a specialization in data science through its MSIM program starting in Fall 2014, and to the undergraduate Informatics program shortly thereafter.

Information changes lives, and the iSchool strives for a future where more effective use of information will help foster a better world. The DataLab is unique in that it provides students an ideal blend of technical skills needed to identify patterns in information, and analytical skills to be able to use it. “The iSchool’s take is really about pulling out actionable insight and answering questions, as opposed to just thinking about methods for the sake of the methods themselves,” says Blumenstock.

If you ask the students at the DataLab, they will tell you that this unique balance of skills and insight is unlike that found in any other school. As Chokkalingam notes: “This is the best place to do data science if you want to do it at the UW.”