Congratulations to all DataFest 2023 @ Vassar participants on a great showing in this year’s competition! After a weekend of data wrangling, cleaning, visualization, contextualization, and analysis, we saw some impressive presentations from our 10 teams on Sunday afternoon. Everyone should be very proud of their work.

The judges had a tough decision, but awarded our three prizes to:

• Team Name (yes, that’s their team name!) for Best Overall Analysis: Steven Wu, Luke Adams, Naveen Malik, Victor Zhang, and Brandon Carido
• Team Alpha for Best Data Visualization: Isaac Rudnick, Joshua Kim, and Saurav Ghimire
• Team DCC Tydiverse for Best Use of Outside Data: David Venuto, Sophia Lopez, Lucas Pfeifer, and Jacob Leggiero

You can see our full gallery from the weekend here.

Thanks again to all of our consultants, judges, volunteers, and, most of all, participants! We hope to see you back next spring for DataFest 2024 @ Vassar!

Please visit the registration page to register by March 3, 2023. Note that you can register either with a team of 2–5 participants (all participants must register) or as an individual and be placed with a team.

Registration is limited to 80 participants, so don’t delay!

DataFest @ Vassar returns to campus soon!

Save the Date: Friday, March 31–April 2

More details and registration link coming soon. In the meantime, reserve the dates and start planning your teams (2–5 members).

Contact lkennedyshaffer@vassar.edu with any questions.

Congratulations to all of our DataFest 2022 @ Vassar participants on a job well done! With an extremely challenging data set, these groups all developed interesting analyses, compelling visualizations, and meaningful conclusions in less than 48 hours.

After a lengthy deliberation, reflecting the high achievement of all of the teams, prizes were awarded to:

• Loud ‘N Cloud (Augusto, Veronica, Jonny, Jack, and Mason) for developing a novel metric, winning Best Use of External Data/Analysis
• Taconic Parkway (Dazheng, Yixiao, and Shunji) for their graphical presentation of the data structure, winning Best Data Visualization
• Data Farmers (Daniel, Kishan, Huaihan, Jocelyn, and Orcun) for an impressive statistical model with appropriate interpretations, winning Best Overall Analysis

Once again, thank you and congratulations to all of our participants!

We would also like to thank all our consultants and judges for volunteering their time to support these teams.

And we would like to thank our sponsors: Vassar College Office of the President, Career Development Office, Computing and Information Services, Environmental Research Institute, and Neuroscience & Behavior Program; the Vassar College Departments of Biology, Cognitive Science, Computer Science, Earth Science & Geography, Economics, Mathematics & Statistics, Physics & Astronomy, Political Science, and Psychological Science; and the Marist College Department of Mathematics.

See you next year for DataFest 2023 @ Vassar! Continue reading Congratulations DataFest 2022 @ Vassar Participants and Award Winners! →

DataFest @ Vassar is back for 2022, in a hybrid format!

DataFest Dates: 5PM Friday April 1 – 5PM Sunday April 3, 2022

Register today! Please visit the registration page to register no later than Friday, March 25, 2022.

Any student from Vassar, SUNY New Paltz, or Marist is eligible to participate, regardless of previous stats or data analysis experience. You can register with a team or as an individual and we’ll match you up to form a team.

DataFest is a celebration of data sponsored by the American Statistical Association, taking place at campuses across the country.

A detailed schedule will be available soon, but here are some highlights:

• Friday, April 1, 5PM: opening ceremonies
• Throughout the weekend: in-person or remote consultation with our expert consultants and access to data analysis workshops
• Sunday, April 3, 1-5PM: closing ceremonies (including team presentations and judge panel) and celebration

Benefits of participation include:

• Access to and support in analyzing a complex, rich data set
• Learning from and working with teammates and consultants
• One-of-a-kind DataFest@Vassar swag
• Grab-and-go catered meals after the opening and closing ceremonies (campus regulations permitting)

Any questions? Please contact the event organizers:

• Monika Hu (jihu@vassar.edu)
• Ming An (mian@vassar.edu)
• Lee Kennedy-Shaffer (lkennedyshaffer@vassar.edu)

DataFest @ Vassar returns in Spring 2022!

Save the Date: Friday April 1 — Sunday April 3.

More details to come, but reserve the weekend and start planning your team. See you there!

Congratulations and thank you to all who participated in DataFest 2021 @ Vassar!  Thank you to the students for your enthusiasm and perseverance that resulted in some insightful presentations, volunteer consultants & judges for your time and expertise, the Vassar President’s Office for sponsoring this year’s prizes, and other departments and offices from Vassar, Marist, and New Paltz for your support.

After our opening ceremony, the data have been revealed and our teams are off on their sprint to find connections and make predictions!

Teams will work until noon on Sunday and submit their analyses for judging in three categories:
– best insight
– best visualization
– best use of external data

We’re excited to see what they can accomplish!

DataFest 2021 @ Vassar is happening this weekend!  Join us on Zoom this Friday, April 16 at 5PM for the Opening Ceremony, where we’ll introduce our teams and reveal this year’s data.  Registered participants and volunteers for DataFest 2021 @ Vassar will receive a Zoom link in their emails this week.