About

Data science is a discipline focused on data-rich technologies and applications, and it builds on several other areas of computing, statistics and mathematics, psychology, and engineering.  The diagram below is illustrative of the landscape of data science topics and the intersections with other areas of study. 

USC’s data science programs cover all those areas, with a strong focus on recent exciting innovations in computing that include data systems for accessing data at large scale, high-performance computing for efficient processing, and sensors for data collection.  In particular, our programs emphasize AI and machine learning technologies which are central to effective data science applications in all domains.

Image released under CC-BY license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/), please acknowledge attribution as “Data Science as Discipline Diagram, Data Science Program, Viterbi School of Engineering, University of Southern California, http://datascience.usc.edu, 2021.”

Published on April 11th, 2017

Last updated on November 10th, 2022