UH plan delves into data science

University outlines proposal for new center, partnering with area schools after UT scrapped similar local idea

A data science center will likely come to Houston after all — it will just be run by Cougars rather than the University of Texas System.

University of Houston leaders announced Thursday — months after the UT System axed an ambitious proposal for land in the Bayou City — that it hopes to offer data science certificates and programs as early as next fall. The UH institute, to be located in a research and engineering building opened on the main campus last year, will apply data science analysis to fields such as infrastructure, security and health care.

Its presence also will bolster other programs, university leaders said.

“The purpose of the institute for data science is to inject data science into the DNA of UH, in every academic program,” said Andrea Prosperetti, a National Academy of Engineering member who joined UH in 2016 and will serve as the project’s head. “Even poets should learn about data science.”

UH’s announcement comes as U.S. graduate business programs are investing more heavily in the field. At least 211 data analytics and information management programs exist in the U.S., up from 178 in March, according to

“The purpose of the institute … is to inject data science into the DNA of UH, in every academic program.”

Andrea Prosperetti, UH engineering professor

the Graduate Management Admission Council.

Proponents of data science laud the field’s potential impact on industries such as energy and oil, where companies have turned to data mastery as a cost-savings technique to avoid, for example, drilling in bad wells.

Two university officials said planning began before UT’s plans were made public.

UT System regents never formally approved a data center for the 300-plus acres that it purchased in southwest Houston for hundreds of millions of dollars without disclosing an explicit purpose for the property.

UT Chancellor William McRaven announced the project in 2015, surprising lawmakers and UH regents, who feared that the land buy would adversely affect UH, UH-Downtown and Texas Southern University.

McRaven scuttled UT’s project in March after lawmakers and UT’s own regents criticized its high spending and lack of specific plan. Documents later revealed that a UT advisory group for the property proposed developing a data science center focusing on medicine, energy and education.

Partnership plans

Unlike the UT System, UH doesn’t have access to the multibillion permanent university fund that funds the University of Texas at Austin and system administration to launch such a project.

Amr Elnashai, UH’s vice chancellor and vice president for research and technology, said UH’s research division will fund launch projects for the institute at $500,000 per year for two years to start. Additional funding from the provost’s office will support faculty hires and administrative costs, he said.

Officials said tuition revenue, particularly from a one-year master’s program, would be a separate revenue stream. Certificate programs and potentially graduate programs could begin as early as next fall. An undergraduate program may take several years to begin, Prosperetti said.

“The bottom line is that we intend to put in whatever is needed,” Elnashai said, acknowledging that UH’s budget is dependent on state lawmakers’ allocations every two years.

Partnerships with industry could fund professorships and scholarships, too, Prosperetti said.

Still, a prominent supporter of the UT System’s plan said Thursday that it would be difficult for any single institution to match UT’s proposal.

“Could UH take it to the same level UT could? I think the answer is no,” said David Wolff, the chairman and president of Wolff Companies who tried to rally lawmakers, UT alumni and other Houston leaders to favor the UT System’s idea earlier this year. “But UT is sort of hog-tied right now because of the opposition they got when they came in town.”

Wolff said collaboration between institutions would create the best center “for the good of the city.”

Elnashai said UH wants to form such partnerships. Elnashai said he has strong relationships with engineering leaders at UTAustin and Texas A&M University.

A draft proposal for UH’s projects said it would encourage partnerships with local community colleges, other UH campuses and the local four-year universities, including Rice University, Texas Southern University and the University of St. Thomas.

“There is no reason why we shouldn’t be collaborating with them,” Prosperetti said of UT.

The UT System declined to comment on overlap between the institutions’ plans or whether it would collaborate with UH on data science research.

Growth of programs

Data programs have become increasingly present in academic offerings around Houston in recent years. UH started a new master’s program in statistics and data analysis this year within its math department, and its computer science master’s program offers a track in data analytics. Courses include machine learning, artificial intelligence and data mining.

Rice University started a $43 million institute in data science to focus on urban flooding, air quality and education policy, and the University of HoustonDowntown offers a master’s in data analytics.

In his annual State of the City address in May, Mayor Sylvester Turner asked UH, Rice and Texas A&M to work with UT to take on a task force’s recommendations for how to use the UT’s land, near the Texas Medical Center.

“If Houston wants to remain a global leader in energy, aeronautics, health care and education, we also need to be a leader in data science. And the world’s premiere data science center needs to be and must be right here in the city of Houston,” Turner said at the time.

A draft report on UH’s data science institute said UH would aim to work with the city and other regional entities “to contribute to the full exploitation of the major possibilities offered by data science” in emergency services, urban planning and other fields.

Turner’s office did not respond to a request for comment Thursday on if and how the city would support UH’s center.