Our mission: to be an innovation-driven enterprise that can facilitate and accelerate a sustained, high-caliber transformation of the university into a global leader in Big Data health science. Our impact: improving and enhancing USC’s institutional culture for interdisciplinary collaboration, efficiency of existing resource utilization, national and international reputation and visibility, and educational outcomes by fostering a new generation of data scientists in healthcare research.

The overarching goals of the BDHSC are to leverage the existing expertise and resources in Big Data science and healthcare research at USC, promote the utilization of Big Data analytics in healthcare research, academic training, and services improvement, and to accelerate the transformation of USC into a global leader in Big Data Health Science.

To achieve these goals, the following five strategic objectives are pursued:

(1) infrastructural and capacity development;

(2) professional development;

(3) community/industry engagement;

(4) academic training;

(5) methodological advances

These interrelated strategic objectives are accomplished through a number of key program activities including coordination and integration of existing infrastructure, expertise and resources, knowledge transfer (research-based and curriculum-based training for students and faculty), cutting-edge research and discovery (extramural grants, publications, intellectual properties), and entrepreneurship and commercialization (industry engagement and service provision). The BDHSC program activities also include two targeted faculty recruitments, a “Big Data Fellows” program, and an annual International Big Data Health Sciences Conference which will collectively support the mission of BDHSC and the transformation of USC into a global leader in Big Data health sciences.