The Program for Faculty Assistance in Data Science (FADS) is designed to provide access to expertise and assistance in advanced data analytics, data visualization, and database development for the purpose of catalyzing faculty research. This program pairs faculty in any discipline with students pursuing a master's degree in Data Science (DS) or Computer Science (CS) through the Luddy School of Informatics, Computing, and Engineering for a guided research project.
These project placements cover up to 150 hours of student effort on a faculty research project. Program participation will be awarded to students on a competitive basis, and carefully matched to faculty projects using faculty preferences, demonstrated competencies, and interest in a given analytic area. Preference will be given to projects that provide valuable learning experiences for the DS or CS students, those which enable promising new or expanded research directions for the investigator, and those which are unlikely to be successful without this program.
DS or CS assistance is available in artificial intelligence, data analytics, data visualization, database development and management, machine learning, natural language processing, network analysis, cloud and high-performance computing, data mining, and web and app development. Please see the full list of available student competencies below.
Project Skills
Cloud & High Performance Computing Computer Vision Data Mining Data Visualization Database Management Deep Learning Internet of Things, sensors, wearables, gadgets Machine Learning Natural Language Processing Network analysis Robotics Security / Privacy Management Signal Processing Smartphone App Development Statistics Web & Social Media Mining Web Front-end Development
Programming Languages and Tools
Adruino C/C++ Excel Java MatLab Python R SAS SPSS SQL Stata
Eligibility
Any faculty member on the Bloomington or Indianapolis campus in a tenure track or research scientist position may apply. Previous recipients may reapply with a new project. The 150 hours of student effort may be distributed in any manner agreed upon by the faculty member and student (e.g., 15 hrs./week for 10 weeks) up to 20 hours/week. Research will start no sooner than the indicated date in the above timeline, unless all parties agree to extend the collaboration beyond the FADS project period.
Eligible as PIs
All tenured and tenure‐eligible faculty members
Research scientists and other non-tenure track faculty whose evaluation criteria are based on research activity
Emeritus faculty
Not Eligible as PIs
Visiting and adjunct faculty members
Postdoctoral fellows and research associates
Graduate students
Questions? Email us at fads@iu.edu.
Timeline
Faculty can choose to be paired with 1-6 students in either the spring or summer term, based on their preference. Student pairing will be made available to faculty by the first week of December.
Spring students enroll in course credit and will work the dates of January 11 – April 23, 2027.
October 31, 2026: Spring FADS student application deadline
By November 30, 2026: Faculty and students get notified
December 4, 2026: Student deadline to confirm participation
Summer students enroll in course credits and will work the dates of May 11 – July 30, 2027.
Please note that for this academic year, there will be a separate student application for the Summer term. The application will be released in the Spring term.
Application requirements
Applicants must complete an electronic application and upload a completed application form. Please note page limitations.
Application sections include:
Summary of project (500-word maximum)
Rationale for assistance in data analytics and visualization (200-word maximum)
Statement of benefit to the student (200-word maximum)
Statement of information about other sources of funding, including whether you would be willing to sponsor all or part of a fellowship (e.g., through a grant or faculty research funds) should demand exceed the number of projects OVPR can support.
Below are the most common questions about the FADS program. Email us at fads@iu.edu if these FAQs don't answer your questions.
FAQs for students
If you are participating in FADS, you will be sent the link to the Slack channel in an email titled "FADS Slack Invitation". This email will not be sent until you are notified that you have been accepted for FADS. If you have been accepted but not received this email, please email fads@iu.edu .
An email will be sent out to all applicants once final FADS decisions have been made mid-November. There are several rounds of student pairings, as some may decline the offer due to other commitments. Please look for an email fromfads@iu.edu notifying you whether pairings have already been made.
If you are no longer interested or able to participate in FADS, please let us know within 2 weeks of your initial pairing.
Standard academic calendar drop deadlines will apply should you choose to enroll in the FADS course and then request to withdraw from FADS. Please ensure you review the currentacademic calendarat the time of requesting to withdraw from the FADS course.
Students are responsible for understanding academic calendar deadlines, completing accurate enrollment drop/withdrawal requests, and informing appropriate faculty if choosing to withdraw from the FADS program.
Students who select the tuition option and then decide to withdraw from the FADS course should note that all standard drop deadlines at the time of withdrawal request will apply. Tuition refund exceptionswill notbe granted.
When you are given your faculty/project pairing, it is up to the discretion of the faculty member if they are comfortable with you participating in both an internship and FADS.
You should have permission to enroll in D590. Please go to questions #7 for the amount of credits. If you do not have permission to enroll, proceed to question #8 below.
Each credit hour typically represents 3–4 hours of project work per week.
For the summer term, students may enroll in 1 or 2 credits.
For the spring term, students may enroll in 1–3 credits.
If you do not have permission to sign up for D590, email fads@iu.edu.
Students willnotbe able to switch between the fellowship stipend and the course credit option.
If you are offered an opportunity to be selected for FADS, youmustchoose from either the stipend/fellowship options OR the course credit option at the time of agreement with your assigned faculty and the Data Science program.
Example: If you were offered/select the option for course credit, youcannotswitch to the fellowship stipend option.
No, you are only permitted to receive the fellowship stipend or course credit.
If you were offered a fellowship, we will send you an email informing you when the stipend will be disbursed. This will happen towards the middle of the FADS project period.
Students accepted to the fellowship are awarded a $3,000 stipend. Receiving this stipend is contingent upon being offered the fellowship and working with the identified faculty member on their research project throughout the FADS program cycle.
Please check that you have not already received an email from fads@iu.edu notifying you that stipends have been disbursed. If not, please email fads@iu.edu.
FAQs for faculty
No. The Luddy team carefully matches students to faculty projects based on specific project needs and demonstrated student competencies in a given analytic area.
You can email the student, contact the student on the slack FADS channel, and askfads@iu.eduto send them an email requesting a response.
You can also remind the student that they must spend time on the project every week to receive a quality grade for course credit or fellowship stipend. Professors have the discretion to forgo a student's stipend if they do not work on the project.
No, faculty must choose between spring and summer student pairings for FADS. You can work with students after the program term, but this should be an independent arrangement between the faculty and student(s) outside of the FADS program.
Grades for the spring semester should be submitted by May 12. Summer grades should be submitted by August 4. An email from fads@iu.edu titled “FADS Grades Form” will be sent out to professors two weeks prior to the due date with a Qualtrics link to enter your student’s grades.
An email from fads@iu.edu titled “FADS Grades Form” will be sent out to project faculty. There will be a link to a Qualtrics form to enter your student’s grades.
Instead of inputting a letter grade into the Qualtrics form, please input an "I".
Emailpatshih@iu.edu when you are ready to submit the final grade.
Please email fads@iu.edu for assistance, we can provide support for this in a quick meeting.
Luddy has several resources such as the makerspace, server storage, etc. Please email fads@iu.edu with any questions and we can provide information on available resources.
No, given limited resources for the program only one faculty project per term is permitted. However, faculty may serve as a co-investigator on another FADS project while serving as principal investigator on their own project.
Yes, faculty can be funded more than once and are encouraged to reapply each year.
Luddy School of Informatics, Computing, and Engineering resources and social media channels
