Sponsor Perspectives

The Benefits of Being a Sponsor

Does your organization need outside expertise …researchers with depth and breadth of know-how in data analytics? Consider sponsoring a GQP with the students and faculty teams at WPI.

CONTACT
Location: Unity Hall
Office Location: 3rd Floor, Room 366
Phone: 508-831-6220
Fax: 508-831-5776

How it works:

The sponsor specifies a challenging business problem and provides data for the students to analyze. A team of three or four Data Science graduate students works under the terms of a mutually beneficial agreement between the corporate sponsor and WPI. Students are expert in a variety of technical and professional skills. Each team is adept in computing, machine learning, statistics, big data management, deep learning, and visualization, and with using industry-standard analytical software tools. They also receive instruction in teamwork, project management, and communication. The Graduate Qualifying Projects contribute to cutting-edge data science STEM programs provided by the industry sponsors through innovative project-based education that bridges the gap between educational training and industry.

For sponsors:

  • Bring together faculty and aspiring data scientists to tackle their problems with state-of-the-art techniques, new ideas, and vision.
  • Access a well-trained and much sought-after talent pool with students trained in the field of big data and data science.
  • Gain exclusive access and application of new techniques and technologies to find solutions to their problems
  • Create new intellectual property and value for their corporation.

Samples of Graduate Qualifying Projects and Their Sponsors

While we strive for a rich diversity of project types (from data analytics and data science tool building to visual analytics) and domains (from science, engineering, financial, government, security, health, and more), some companies and/or mentors repeatedly collaborate with WPI on this important effort.

  • Analytical Approach to Account Management —sponsored by AndPlus
  • Prediction of Failed Job for Web2print —sponsored by AndPlus
  • Visual Analytics for Robust Corrosion Assessment —sponsored by Army Research Laboratory
  • MIL-STD-3059: Moving Toward the Future, a Data Science Approach —sponsored by Army Research Laboratory
  • Beat Cancer with Natural Language Processing —sponsored by Dana Farber Cancer Institute
  • Measuring Cancer Patients Similarity with the Clinico-Genomic Likeness Index —sponsored by Dana Farber Cancer Institute
  • Subvocal Speech Recognition Using EMG —sponsored by Delsys
  • Clustering Time Series Data Based on a Given Distance Function —sponsored by EnerNOC
  • Dive Into the Health Insurance World—sponsored by Fallon Health
  • Automated Process for Data Acquisition, Analysis and Preprocessing —sponsored by Findability Sciences
  •  Data on Demand —sponsored by GRC
  • Aircraft Health Predictive Analytics —sponsored by IBM
  • Bioassay Concept Mapping: Limitations of Current NLP Technologies —sponsored by IOMICS
  •  Structuring the Unstructured: Natural Language Analysis of a Knowledge Base —sponsored by Kronos
  • Modeling Workforce Transaction —sponsored by Kronos
  • VERTI Auto Insurance —sponsored by MAPFRE/VERTI Insurance
  • Mobile App Usability and Click Tracking Analysis —sponsored by MAPFRE/VERTI Insurance
  • Public School Website Design —sponsored by MassINC
  • Machine Estimation of Exposure —sponsored by MassDEP
  • MassDEP Disposal Cleanup Rate Factors —sponsored by MassDEP
  • University Lookup Via Textual Analytics —sponsored by MathWorks
  • Bridging the Communication Gap in Global Fire Safety Using Neural Machine Translation —sponsored by National Fire Protection Association
  • Research and Implementation of Distributed Frameworks for Geocoding —sponsored by National Fire Protection Association
  • Fleet Maintenance Data Mining at National Grid —sponsored by National Grid
  • Adding Value in Machine Learning in Building the IoT —sponsored by OSRAM
  • Application of Smart Lighting to Workspace Optimization in Office Space Utilization —sponsored by OSRAM Sylvania
  • Clinical Supply Chain Shipment Profiling —sponsored by Pfizer
  • Clinical Supply Chain Data Profiling —sponsored by Pfizer
  • Clinical Trial Overage: Define the Data Landscape —sponsored by Pfizer
  • Enhancing and Accelerating Chemical Development Through Easy-to-Use Computational Tools —sponsored by Pfizer
  • Investigational Product Waste Analysis: Optimizing the Global Clinical Supply Chain —sponsored by Pfizer
  • Enhancing and Accelerating Chemical Development Through Easy-to-Use Computational Tools —sponsored by Pfizer
  • Global Clinical Supply Chain (Patient Enrollment Performance and Prediction) —sponsored by Pfizer
  • Scientific Data Cloud —sponsored by Pfizer
  • Real-Time Cyber Security Threat Detection —sponsored by Seceon
  • Anomaly Detection in Cybersecurity —sponsored by Seceon
  • Analysis of Wearable Sensors Data For Human Activity Recognition —sponsored by Takeda Pharmaceutical
  • Learning the Brain —sponsored by UMass Medical School
  • Learning the Mind —sponsored by UMass Medical School
  • Outlier Detection In EEG Data —sponsored by UMass Medical School
  • Talent AI: A Job Recommendation System Via Resume Text Mining —sponsored by United Technologies
  • Empowering Fraud Detection —sponsored by Waters Corporation
  • Paradigm™ Scientific Search Redesign —sponsored by Waters Corporation
  • Data Mining Waters Databases —sponsored by Waters Corporation

Open Call For Projects

Contact Elke Rundensteiner, Director of Data Science at rundenst@wpi.edu or by calling 508-831-5815. If you are ready to submit a Project Proposal online, please review and submit the Project Inquiry Form.

or more detailed program information, download the complete Open Call for GQP Proposals below:

Industry Partnerships

WPI’s long history of industry partnerships is the keystone of the Data Science program. We invest heavily in our Graduate Qualifying Project, the capstone where students use data analysis to deliver strategic business decisions in real time.

Peter Atkins, Director Market Research & Planning Fallon Health, 10 Chestnut St., Worcester MA, 01608

The Graduate Qualifying Project collaboration between Fallon and WPI has proven to be of great value to Fallon Health. We appreciate the highly collaborative effort to help us address an important business challenge. The students’ knowledge base in Machine Learning combined with very strong backgrounds in Science, Mathematics, and Statistics contributed to a research project that yielded a large amount of actionable information. 

The students were able to confirm some of our working theories through the use of solid analytics practices; they also contributed new information that Fallon will be able to use for member-targeted approaches to CMS star improvement efforts. The information provided is at a level that was not previously available within the organization. We are excited about applying meaningful interventions based on the project findings. For all of these reasons, this effort could help us to ensure that we continue to receive a bonus payment worth millions of dollars by helping us to continually improve HOS Scores.

The overall experience was excellent. The GQP team was professional, highly responsive, and offered great insight while working with us in a highly collaborative manner. It was a great learning experience for the Fallon team and we hope that this real-life application project was as beneficial to Shen, Han, and Li. We wish them all the best in their next endeavors.

“I very much enjoyed working with WPI in defining this project and for identifying a quality group of students to work with. I like how they are aligning students with industry organizations to help solve real-world problems. I hope we continue this collaboration and I wish you all the success in the world in expanding the program and creating the next generation of super-smart data scientists that we all need.”

—John Arnold, Cognitive Solution Leader from IBM