An ambitious initiative at the University of Massachusetts Amherst to accelerate data science and cybersecurity in the Pioneer Valley received a significant financial boost from the state on Wednesday.
Gov. Charlie Baker awarded the $5 million grant to help establish the UMass Amherst Data Science/Cybersecurity Research and Education Collaborative on the flagship campus. The initiative is a joint private-public partnership between the state, university and the MassMutual Foundation, which awarded a 10-year, $15 million grant to the university in June.
The new collaborative aims to drive innovation and research, commercialization of new products and create workforce training activities in the Valley, according to a UMass press release.
The state funding will pay for the installation of advanced computing equipment at the Massachusetts Green High Performance Computing Center in Holyoke. Faculty and students will be able to access this equipment remotely at UMass Amherst, Mount Holyoke College and at the UMass Center in Springfield and Boston, according to the release.
The collaborative aims to connect academic institutions, generate investment opportunities, attract federal research grants and professional talent and offer professional development opportunities.
“As the Commonwealth’s flagship campus, UMass Amherst strategically aligns its research and teaching mission with the needs of Massachusetts,” UMass Amherst Chancellor Kumble Subbaswamy said in the release. “We are grateful to the Baker-Polito administration for their investment in this public-private partnership that will help leverage the MassMutual Foundation’s support and provide the commonwealth and its citizens new opportunities in the critical areas of data science and cybersecurity.”
The grant awarded by the MassMutual Foundation will provide funding for new faculty hires, increase the number of data science courses at UMass Amherst and the Springfield UMass Center, increase the size of the master’s program in computer science, create a new Trust Assurance Cybersecurity certificate and provide new research opportunities.
Chris Lindahl can be reached at clindahl@gazettenet.com