Department of Statistics and Data Sciences, The University of Texas at Austin

What Department of Statistics and Data Sciences, The University of Texas at Austin does

The Department of Statistics and Data Sciences (SDS) is an academic unit within UT Austin's College of Natural Sciences, established in 2014. It offers Bachelor of Science, MS, and PhD programs in statistics and data sciences, including a fully online Master of Data Science launched in 2020 (the first online degree UT Austin offered in this field) and an undergraduate BS major launched in 2022. The department has 16 tenured and tenure-track faculty plus roughly 22 staff/administrative personnel, with interdisciplinary affiliations across biology, business, computer science, medicine, population health, engineering, and mathematics. Research strengths span Bayesian statistics, machine learning, spatial statistics, network analysis, and computational methods for large-scale data, with notable applied work on pandemic forecasting (Texas Pandemic Flu Toolkit, COVID-19 mortality forecasting model, staged alert system used by Austin).

The department is a public, state-funded academic unit — not a commercial entity. Its "revenue" mechanics are university budget allocations (state appropriations and tuition), competitive federal research grants from NIH, NSF, and CDC, and private donations through the UT Giving campaign (including corporate contributions such as Tito's Handmade Vodka for COVID-19 modeling work). Distribution is through on-campus instruction, the online MS program, and experiential learning partnerships (notably with the City of Austin open data portal). Faculty have built proprietary pandemic-modeling tools using anonymized cellphone mobility data (via SafeGraph) and partnerships with Austin-area hospital systems (Ascension Seton, St. David's HealthCare, Baylor Scott & White Health). Computing infrastructure is supplied through a long-standing partnership with UT's Texas Advanced Computing Center (TACC).

External relationships are unusually broad for a 10-year-old department. Faculty collaborate with Dell Medical School, the CDC and White House Coronavirus Task Force, Northwestern, MIT, Ohio State, University of Pittsburgh, Stanford, Rochester, Google Empathy Lab, and the Santa Fe Institute. The customer base is effectively threefold: students (undergraduate enrollment approaching 1,800 in SDS service courses), federal research sponsors, and public-sector/clinical partners consuming pandemic-decision tools. The department also produces revenue from a Google Award for Inclusion Research program and NSF CAREER grants held by multiple junior faculty.

Name

Department of Statistics and Data Sciences, The University of Texas at Austin

Legal name

Department of Statistics and Data Sciences, The University of Texas at Austin

Website

https://stat.utexas.edu

Company type

Public

Founded year

2014

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

11–50 employees

Short description

The Department of Statistics and Data Sciences at UT Austin offers undergraduate and graduate programs (BS, MS, PhD) in statistics and machine learning, serving students, federal research sponsors, and public health partners through foundational Bayesian and computational methods research.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Product category

Higher Education — Statistics and Data Sciences

NAICS

Research and Development in the Physical, Engineering, and Life Sciences (54171), Research and Development in the Social Sciences and Humanities (541720)

SIC

Services-Commercial Physical & Biological Research (8731), Services-Computer Programming, Data Processing, Etc. (7370)

akta.pro primary industry

Data Science & Analytics (Data Literacy, SQL, Visualization) (EDAMACAF)

akta.pro secondary industries

Biostatistics, Statistical Computing & Clinical Programming (SAS/R/Pipelines) (HLACAOAO), Health Data, Vital Statistics & Population Health Informatics (BPAIAJAM)

Keywords

• Statistics education
• Data science research
• Graduate degree programs
• Undergraduate statistics major
• Academic research department

Headquarters

HQ city

Austin

HQ country

United States

HQ region

North America

Offices3 records

Markets served

GTM type

B2C

Offering type

Services

Cost components

Personnel, Operations, Technology or R&D, Others

Revenue model

1. Tuition and University Funding: The department is funded through university budget allocations based on student enrollment and institutional priorities. Being part of UT Austin's College of Natural Sciences, funding comes from state appropriations, tuition revenue, and institutional budget processes.
2. Research Grants and Contracts: Faculty secure competitive research funding from federal agencies (NIH, NSF, CDC) and private foundations to support research programs, graduate students, and postdoctoral fellows.
3. External Donations: The department receives charitable contributions through the UT Giving campaign, including designated donations to support departmental initiatives, student support, and faculty research.

Pricing tiers

Go-to-market motion1 record

Distribution channels4 records

Marketing channels7 records

Core offering

The Department of Statistics and Data Sciences is an academic department within UT Austin's College of Natural Sciences that delivers undergraduate, graduate, and postdoctoral education in statistics and data science, alongside faculty-led research in Bayesian methods, machine learning, spatial statistics, and pandemic modeling. Programs include a BS in Statistics and Data Science, MS and PhD in Statistics, an online Master of Data Science, an undergraduate minor, undergraduate certificates, and postdoctoral fellowships. The department also conducts externally funded research serving public agencies and industry through partnerships with TACC, CDC, NIH, NSF, and Austin-area healthcare systems.

Product overview

The Department of Statistics and Data Sciences at The University of Texas at Austin is an academic department offering educational programs and conducting research. Its primary offerings include undergraduate and graduate degree programs (Bachelor of Science in Statistics and Data Science, MS in Statistics, PhD in Statistics), postdoctoral fellowship programs, undergraduate certificates (Applied Statistical Modeling, Scientific Computation and Data Science), graduate portfolio programs, and a comprehensive suite of courses. The department does not offer commercial products or services; it provides academic instruction, research opportunities, and experiential learning in statistics and data science.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Products and services

• Bachelor of Science in Statistics and Data Science

Quantifiable outcome

• Austin maintained lowest per capita COVID-19 death rate among all large Texas cities using department's forecasting system
• +5 more outcomes

Named customers7 records

Segments1 record

Ideal customer profiles3 records

Technology focussed Yes

API detail

Has API

No

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

Feature7 records

Partnerships

16 partnerships are on record, tiered core, major and minor.

• Dell Medical SchoolcoreStrategic or Co-development Partner · 1 January 2012Collaboration on COVID-19 pandemic modeling and healthcare impact assessment for the Austin-Round Rock area. Lauren Ancel Meyers teamed up with Dell Medical School to assess potential pandemic impact. Dr. Clay Johnston, dean of Dell Medical School, participated in COVID-19 task force. Partnership enabled hospital data sharing essential for forecasting models.
• Texas Advanced Computing Center (TACC)coreTechnology or IntegrationTACC provides high-performance computing resources for pandemic modeling and large-scale statistical computation. Researchers use TACC's supercomputing capabilities to run simulations and analyze complex datasets. TACC hosts COVID-19 Modeling Consortium dashboards and projections website.
• City of AustincoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerOngoing collaboration for pandemic planning and response. City officials received preliminary model projections; Austin used department's staged alert system to guide COVID-19 policies. Mayor Steve Adler credited the forecasting system with helping maintain lowest COVID-19 death rate among large Texas cities.
• Austin-Area Hospital Systems (Ascension Seton, St. David's HealthCare, Baylor Scott & White Health)coreStrategic or Co-development PartnerThree major hospital systems provided key data including ICU and hospital capacity estimates and daily reports of COVID-19 hospital admissions. This data enabled the development of city-level forecasting models not available in most other U.S. cities. Partnership was central to coordinated pandemic response.
• Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)majorStrategic or Co-development PartnerCollaborative research on health benefits of wind power with MIT researchers. UT's Corwin Zigler co-authored study published in Science Advances analyzing how wind energy displaces fossil fuel emissions and associated health impacts across U.S. communities.
• Northwestern UniversitymajorStrategic or Co-development PartnerCollaboration with Northwestern University's David Morton on designing optimized COVID-19 alert systems. Research published in Nature Communications on Austin's staged alert system effectiveness compared to other international approaches.
• The Ohio State UniversitymajorStrategic or Co-development PartnerCatherine (Kate) Calder spent 16 years as faculty member at Ohio State before joining UT. Co-directed Mathematical Biosciences Institute (one of eight NSF-funded Mathematical Sciences Research Institutes, 2018-2019). Current research collaboration on neighborhood crime and dog ownership with Ohio State colleagues.
• University of PittsburghmajorStrategic or Co-development PartnerNSF-funded joint project on statistical frameworks for neuroscience of learning. Bharath Chandrasekaran (Professor and Vice Chair for Research, Department of Communication Science and Disorders) co-authored research with Abhra Sarkar on Bayesian methods for analyzing neural and behavioral learning processes.
• Google Empathy LabminorStrategic or Co-development PartnerCollaboration on adolescent mindset training research. Danielle Krettek Cobb from Google Empathy Lab co-authored Nature publication on growth mindset and stress-can-be-enhancing mindset interventions for adolescents.
• Population Research CenterminorStrategic or Co-development PartnerCatherine (Kate) Calder is affiliated with UT's Population Research Center, which supports research on population dynamics and health outcomes.
• LaMontagne Center for Infectious DiseaseminorStrategic or Co-development PartnerCOVID-19 analysis reports published on LaMontagne Center website in advance of scientific peer review due to time-sensitive nature of pandemic response.
• Mathematical Biosciences InstituteminorStrategic or Co-development PartnerCatherine (Kate) Calder served as co-director (2018-2019); one of eight NSF-funded Mathematical Sciences Research Institutes.
• University of RochesterminorStrategic or Co-development PartnerJeremy Jamieson from University of Rochester co-authored adolescent mindset training research published in Nature.
• Stanford UniversityminorStrategic or Co-development PartnerJames Gross from Stanford University co-authored adolescent mindset training research published in Nature.
• Santa Fe InstituteminorStrategic or Co-development PartnerMichael Lachmann contributed to COVID-19 mortality forecasting model development alongside UT researchers.
• Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)coreStrategic or Co-development PartnerResearch team provided COVID-19 model to CDC and White House Coronavirus Task Force. CDC also provided research funding support. Lauren Ancel Meyers tapped to help scale decision-support tools nationally through CDC partnership.

Scale indicators9 records

Market position

Strengths4 records

Key risks6 records

Key highlights6 records

Customer concentration

• LinkedInlinkedin.com/company/department-of-statistics-and-data-sciences-the-university-of-texas-at-austin

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Profiles8 records

Funding overview

Funding rounds

Investors

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M&A

Investments

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Frequently asked questions about Department of Statistics and Data Sciences, The University of Texas at Austin