IGFAE to host the conference on Data Science in Fundamental Physics and the Bridge to Industry & Society

The Galician Institute of High Energy Physics (IGFAE), a joint centre of the University of Santiago de Compostela (USC) and the Galician autonomous government (Xunta de Galicia), a member of the CIGUS Network, an initiative launched by the regional government (Xunta de Galicia) that groups together centres of accredited scientific excellence, will be hosting the conference entitled ‘Data Science in Fundamental Physics and the Bridge to Industry & Society’ between 3rd and 7th June.

The meeting aims to promote dialogue between academia and industry, as well as to highlight professional opportunities for people interested in data science and its applications to society and business. The meeting will be held for the first time ever in Santiago de Compostela after three editions in Portugal, in the cities of Lisbon, Braga and Coimbra.

The event will take place at the University of Santiago de Compostela’s Centre for Advanced Studies (CEA), situated in Vista Alegre Park. It is divided into two parts: from 3rd to 5th June, there will be an intensive course on Probability, Statistics and Machine Learning, intended for PhD students and postdoctoral research staff. The sessions will be led by Glen Cowan (professor of Physics at the Royal Holloway, University of London), and Pietro Vischia (a researcher at the University of Oviedo and the Asturias Institute of Science and Space Technologies (ICTEA).

Data science, a rapidly expanding sector

Thousands of companies around the world are currently seeking to recruit staff specialised in data science, one of the most highly demanded profiles on the job market in sectors ranging from social app giants to retail, pharmaceutical, consulting or telecommunications companies. The aim of this discipline is to analyse the huge data sets that are continually being produced, identifying correlations, causal relationships and patterns that can be used to construct hypotheses, assign meanings or assess algorithm efficiency.

Within this context, the symposium organised by the IGFAE aims, on the one hand, to improve training in data science for researchers in the early stages of their careers. At the same time, it provides an opportunity to establish direct contact with the labour market and, in general, with the needs of society in this area. What’s more, IGFAE will also be able to demonstrate to individual participants and organisations its scientific capacities in the areas of High Energy Physics, Nuclear, Astroparticle and Fundamental Physics.