A $10 million donation from William Neukom ’64, a former Board of Trustees chair, will sponsor the creation of the College’s first academic cluster in the field of computational sciences. The cluster will comprise three new professorships, a postdoctoral fellowship and increased opportunities for undergraduate students to research and study.
The cluster will integrate and extend computational work that is currently happening at the College, Neukom Institute for Computational Sciences director Dan Rockmore said.
Interdisciplinary in nature, computational science focuses on data analysis across various academic fields, ranging from physics to anthropology, and uses mathematical models to solve scientific problems.
“It will bring together ideas and people from different departments who are engaged in this work,” Rockmore said.
The cluster’s research will extend computational ideas beyond the hard sciences and into other disciplines, he said.
Math professor Alex Barnett, who currently teaches a class on computational and experimental mathematics, said computational science can be applied to tasks in almost any field, like designing molecules in chemistry, analyzing massive data sets in the social sciences and digitally reconstructing ancient objects.
Barnett said the most important aspect of computational science is creating new algorithms.
Of the three new professorships created by the cluster, one will be named for Thomas Kurtz, who co-invented BASIC with former College President John Kemeny.
Rockmore said that the additional professorships could go to faculty in a wide range of departments, not just the computer science department.
“Rather than supporting specific departments directly, we’re trying to support interdisciplinary new areas, which might turn into new departments,” Barnett said. “That’s what makes it exciting.”
Barnett attributed the growing popularity of computational science to the rise of “big data,” greater availability of information and increasing analysis of data sets too large to be processed on individual computers. More and more data is being created across different scientific disciplines, he said, creating more to process.
“We have more data to analyze than we’ve ever had before,” he said.
Major companies like Google and Facebook, Barnett said, regularly use computational science to program the algorithms that drive their services.
Barnett said he believes the College’s investment in the growing field is a smart move. He added, however, that “big data” technology may be used in harmful ways.
“Some of it is good, and some of it is evil,” he said. “If you do the wrong thing, you could have a surveillance society.”
Computational science has ramifications for social sciences and the humanities as well, Barnett said, adding that he and others are concerned that “big data” could diminish qualitative humanities pursuits.
In addition to Neukom’s $10 million donation, $5 million from the College’s April $100 million anonymous gift will go toward developing the cluster. Hanlon announced the faculty cluster initiative, which aims to increase interdisciplinary learning at the College, this fall.
Jaki Kimball ’16, who is majoring in computer science modified with digital arts, said that while she may not participate in the new cluster’s offerings, she believes computational science and its interdisciplinary applications are important, especially in computer science.
“You shouldn’t be studying in a vacuum,” she said.
Thinking in an interdisciplinary way, she said, offers helpful applications for the real world.
Malika Khurana ’15, an engineering major and studio art minor, said she appreciates opportunities for interdisciplinary learning.
“I have made a lot of connections between humanities and comp sci and engineering,” she said. “I like that Dartmouth is a liberal arts school, but you can still do engineering.”
A previous donation from Neukom funded the creation of the Neukom Institute, which supports Dartmouth faculty and students who use computation for their research, in 2004.
Neukom is the founder and CEO of the World Justice Project. He served as the Microsoft Corporation’s lead lawyer for over 20 years and chaired the College’s Board of Trustees from 2004 to 2007 .
Neukom could not be reached for comment by press time.
