Students currently in S&DS 491/492 should use the Canvas page for announcements, updates, submissions, etc. for the current semester.
S&DS 491/492 Senior Thesis is an opportunity to apply what you have learned in your studies to an independent research project, under the mentorship of an advisor, on a topic of mutual interest. You will gain experience with formulating a problem, with well-defined questions that you would like to answer, developing a plan of attack, executing that plan, and interpreting and communicating your findings. You will be responsible for submitting the following:
- Project proposal with timeline. A short description of your problem, methods you will use, the data you’ll use (if applicable), a set of deliverables, and a rough timeline of project milestones.
- Poster. A poster summarizing your project that will be presented at a poster session at the end of the academic year.
- Report. A written report describing your work.
More details about these are in the sections below.
Advisor
When choosing an advisor make sure they are available to meet with you at least once a week (online or in person) and that they are good about responding to emails in a timely manner. An advisor who doesn’t meet very often is one of the biggest sources of frustration for students, so it is important that you ask if they will be able to meet regularly.
Students who have a project in mind can shop it around to try to find an advisor for that project. Students who don’t have a project in mind should identify faculty working in areas of interest to them.
Advisors can be from S&DS or any other department at Yale. Typically they must be a Yale faculty member with a Ph.D. If you want to work with someone who doesn’t fit that description (e.g. a post-doc), please talk with me.
I strongly urge you to contact me a week or two before the semester to discuss possible projects and advisors if you haven’t determined your project already.
Project topic
Projects can be applied, computational, or theoretical, and can be basically anything that is relevant to statistics and data science, broadly defined.
Since data and statistical reasoning are everywhere, there is a very wide range of topics that are possible. We have had students do projects related to history, sports, finance, medicine, political science, environment, mathematics, energy, music, chemistry, media, economics, and more. And that was just from one semester. You can find some example project abstracts here.
The priority is your own academic and professional development. Choose a project where you will learn, develop skills, and gain experience that you can use after graduation, provided that it is related to statistics and data science, broadly defined.
Also, choose a topic that interests you. Chances are you will enjoy the project more and be more motivated to work on it if the subject matter is interesting to you.
If you are currently working in a lab, you could develop a project closely related to your work there. Note that you can not get both payment and course credit for the same project. So if you are getting paid by the lab, then your senior project should be clearly distinct from the project that you are getting paid for. This is usually not a problem, as it is typically easy to develop a project that is strongly related to, but clearly distinct from, your other project.
If you did a capstone project in S&DS 425, and you want to continue working on that project for your senior project, you are free to do so. You can also use the same data set if you’d like. But your work for your thesis will need to be clearly distinct from the work you did on your capstone project. This could mean you try to answer a completely different question, you answer the same question but using different approaches, or you make clear improvements to the approaches you used for your capstone project.
Please feel free to reach out to me to discuss your project beforehand as well. If you have an advisor they can help you develop an appropriate plan of action for your thesis as well.
Data Science Project Match
Near the beginning of the fall semester in August and near the end of the fall semester in November there will be Data Science Project Match events being organized by the Yale Institute for Foundations of Data Science. There will be about 10 faculty who each give 5 minute presentations on potential projects they are interested in working on that have a data science component. Afterwards students and faculty can hang out to talk about projects of mutual interest. This could be a good way to get project ideas and/or an advisor if you don’t currently have anything in mind.
Here are links to previous data science project match events, in case you want to get an idea of the types of projects that will be presented. Each page has a list of faculty members who presented, and a link to all the abstracts from all of the project talks.
Proposal
After getting pre-approval you need to submit a project proposal. The project proposal should be 2-3 pages long and include: an overview description of the problem area, your specific tasks along with a timeline if possible, and your expected deliverables for the project. The proposal should have most of these in it:
- a short description of the problem area and why it is important and interesting
- a problem statement
- a discussion of the methods, strategy, techniques, etc that you’ll use
- if data is involved, do you need to collect it, clean it, etc
- a list of deliverables for the project
- a rough timeline of project milestones
A template will be provided on Canvas.
Data
If data is involved in your project then be sure that it is already available, or that you can obtain it quickly. Acquiring data is often the biggest time delay and largest source of frustration for students. This is a big reason that finding an advisor and project earlier than the official deadlines is highly recommended.
Poster and Report
At the end of the semester you will submit a poster for the poster session, and a final report. Before these deadlines, you will submit a draft of your report and poster to Canvas and to your advisor for feedback. Please make sure your poster is 36x48 and in PDF format. Please see the assignment description for more details.
It will be up to your advisor as far as what should go into the poster and report. In case it helps, there is a Report Template on Canvas that I have given students in S&DS 425 Statistical Case Studies class. I should note though that this template (1) assumes the project focuses on hands-on analysis of data, which may not be what your project is (2) is just a guide even for those projects, and may not be appropriate for every project since every project is different, and (3) was written by me, not your advisor, who may have different ideas about what the paper should look like. This may give you some ideas about what kinds of things you might include in the paper, but you’ll definitely want to discuss this with your advisor. The template is not meant to be prescriptive.
Outstanding Thesis Award
The S&DS Outstanding Thesis Award is awarded annually to S&DS seniors who have accomplished the most outstanding senior projects in statistics and data science. Students are nominated by their advisors before the poster session so the award committee can be sure to visit their poster and talk with them during the poster session. Outstanding Thesis Awards are presented during the S&DS Commencement luncheon in the afternoon after graduation.
Questions
If you have questions about S&DS 491/492, please contact Brian Macdonald.
491/492 FAQs
What are the options for the S&DS senior requirement?
To fulfill the senior requirement, you must complete a senior project (S&DS 491-492). You can choose to take the senior project in either the Fall (S&DS 491) or Spring (S&DS 492) semester.
How do I choose a senior project (S&DS 491-492)?
The first step is to find an advisor. Ideally, a student will think of a research project, and then find a faculty member who is willing to help supervise it. The faculty member will often suggest changes to the proposed project. Other students find advisors by approaching faculty members they know and asking if they can propose projects. It is strongly advised that you identify your advisor and research project the semester before you enroll in S&DS 491-492.
Once you know you want to complete a senior project, you should start reaching out to find an advisor soon. Many faculty members will receive requests from multiple students to advise their projects, and if you ask too late, faculty members may not have the time to take an additional advisee, even if you’ve proposed an interesting project.
Projects can be applied, computational, or theoretical — essentially anything that is relevant to statistics and data science.
Who do I choose to advise my senior project?
If you already have a project idea in mind, you probably want to start by reaching out to a faculty member who is an expert in that area and ask whether they would be willing to advise your project. It would be smart to have read a few relevant articles and papers on the topic prior to emailing the faculty member, and the faculty member can suggest changes to make the project more tractable and feasible within the course of one semester.
If you’re still searching for a project, you can try getting in touch with professors you’ve met in classes or through other venues to see if they have suggestions for projects.
It’s really important that you choose an advisor who is easy to reach — someone who responds to your emails quickly, and who is willing to set aside an hour or so every week to check-in with you on your progress. Also note that your thesis advisor does not necessarily have to be a faculty member affiliated with the Statistics & Data Science department.
The Applied Math FAQ provides really good advice on choosing advisers. With full credit given:
“A general rule of thumb is that the closer the professor’s main body of research is to your project, the better your project will turn out. This is for three important reasons: 1) the professor will have expertise in the area and be able to provide you useful help, 2) the professor will be invested in your work because it is relevant to what the professor is spending time on his/herself, and 3) the professor will be better able to scope a project for you, and figure out what work is feasible for someone at your level and will take about a semester to complete.
“The danger of working with a professor less familiar with what you want to do is that s/he may have less interest in or ability to help you, and you may end up with a project that hits a dead end six weeks in, or that turns out to be far too complicated for a semester’s worth of work. Going to an interesting professor first and asking for a project the professor already has an interest in can often help mitigate these risks.”
What are the deliverables and requirements for the senior project?
There are only two hard deadlines for the senior project:
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By the end of Add/Drop, you must submit a 1-2 page project proposal to the instructor, roughly describing the project you have in mind. A proposal template is provided with more details.
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By the end of reading period, you should submit a project report and project poster to the course instructor. Your project will be graded by your project supervisor and the course instructor.
Much of the project is self-paced, which will require you to properly set milestones and hold yourself accountable to them. Most reports are around 20 pages, though those projects with extensive data or code may run longer. You will also have to present your work at the S&DS Poster Session, which is generally held during reading period.
When should I complete my senior project?
You can complete your senior project either in your senior fall or senior spring. There is no difference between these two options as far as evaluation or logistics. No matter which semester you choose to complete your thesis, you should begin reaching out to professors during the middle of the previous semester, and have your project finalized in the break prior to that semester.
Two factors you may wish to take into consideration:
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The advisor you have in mind may have more availability during either the spring or fall semester, and it may be worth checking in in advance.
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If you plan to apply to graduate school in the fall, completing your thesis in the fall would allow your thesis advisor to write you a stronger letter of recommendation.
If I will be graduating in December, when can I take the senior thesis?
Students can take 491/492 in their last two semesters at Yale. If, for example, a student is graduating in Dec 2025, they can take S&DS 491 in Fall 2025, right before graduating, or S&DS 492 in Spring 2025.
Note that there is a poster session for senior thesis projects annually in May. If the student enrolls in S&DS 492 in Spring 2025, they would participate in the poster session in May 2025. If the student enrolls in S&DS 491 in Fall 2025, their poster session is in May 2026. Since many students are not in the New Haven area after graduation, many December graduates end up not participating in the poster session in May, so that’s something to think about. Students typically enjoy the poster session as a culmination of their senior project and as a forum in which to share their work with classmates, friends, and professors.
Is there a difference in the senior project I have to complete for the B.S. and B.A.?
No.
Does S&DS allow students to conduct a joint thesis with another department?
No.