The ASA Quality and Productivity Section will sponsor a continuing education course at JSM in Denver titled Big Data, Data Science, and Deep Learning for Statisticians. Ming Li, an established statistician and data scientist from Amazon.com will be the course instructor. The course is designed for a wide audience, covering traditional industry sectors, government agencies, and universities. Graduate students are especially encouraged to attend.

With the recent rise of the big data, data science, and deep learning revolution, enterprises ranging from FORTUNE 100 companies to startups across the world are hungry for data scientists and machine learning scientists to bring actionable insight from the vast amount of data collected. In the past few years, deep learning has gained traction in many application areas and become an essential tool in the data scientist’s toolbox.

In this course, participants will develop a clear understanding of the big data cloud platform, acquire technical skills in data sciences and machine learning, and apply these skills to cases of deep learning through hands-on exercises. The course will also cover the “art” of data science and machine learning, teaching participants a typical agile data science project flow, how to avoid general pitfalls in data science and machine learning, and soft skills necessary to effectively communicate with business stakeholders.

The big data platform, data science, and deep learning overviews were specifically designed for audiences with a statistics education background. This course will prepare statisticians to be successful data scientists in various industries and business sectors.

Li is a senior data scientist at Amazon.com and adjunct faculty member in the department of marketing and business analytics at Texas A&M University – Commerce. He organized and presented the 2018 JSM introductory overview lecture “Leading Data Science: Talent, Strategy, and Impact” and was chair of the Quality and Productivity Section in 2017.

Prior to his position at Amazon, Li was a data scientist at Walmart and statistical leader at General Electric Global Research Center. He earned his PhD in statistics from Iowa State University in 2010. Possessing a deep statistics background and several years’ experience in data science, he has trained and mentored numerous junior data scientists of varying backgrounds, including statisticians, programmers, software developers, database administrators, and business analysts. He is also an instructor at Amazon’s internal Machine Learning University and was a key founding member of Walmart’s Analytics Rotational Program, which bridges the skill gaps between new hires and productive data scientists.