The course is offered across the Indiana University - Bloomington campus at the graduate level and is one of the applied capstone experiences for graduate students in the Luddy School Master of Data Science degree program.
We have an agreement to list this across the Graduate School in 2026 to expand this across all IUB graduate degree programs. Each semester, approximately 80 students are divided into teams of 3–4 students and are matched with project sponsors to provide high-impact consulting, addressing real-world challenges across public, private, and nonprofit sectors. This project-based learning format emphasizes both data science and consulting skill development.
Students begin by defining their own learning goals—technical, collaborative, and professional—and work directly with sponsors to define a project scope, deliver value, and translate theory into practice.
Who Have We Served? Since 2016, our Data Science as a Service project sponsors reflect the diversity of modern data science applications. Past sponsors have come from sectors including:
Kyle has spent most of his career working at the boundary between ideas and execution. He always turns concepts into systems that people can actually use. His background spans product management, Middleware data systems, and applied research, with a consistent focus on real-world deployment rather than theory.
At Indiana University, Kyle leads global research initiatives within the RedLab at the Luddy School, where he works with students, researchers, and external partners on projects that require both technical depth and practical application. Much of his work centers on project-based learning. In these settings he is putting teams into real environments where the problems are not clean and the answers are not obvious.
He has worked extensively with data-driven systems, particularly in healthcare and other complex sectors, and has developed programs that connect academic work directly to industry needs. Over time, he has become increasingly focused on how systems scale-especially when they depend on coordination across people, organizations, and environments.
He tends to approach problems from a systems perspective building technology and ecosystems by looking for what is missing, what does not connect, and what needs to exist for something to work at scale.
Delivering Data Science as a Service -- Experience to Impact
Real Clients. Real Projects. Real Impact.
Providing Data Science Teams working on projects to Achieve Enduring Outcomes.
Experience to Impact is providing Graduate-level Data Science as a Service. This is where student teams tackle real-world problems through Data Science consulting for partners in Industry, Government, and Academia through innovation, and interdisciplinary collaboration. This effort establishes IU student teams collaborating with sponsors. These students participants work to meet their learning goals through project based learning and build skills in the following areas:
1) Putting New Technology into Current Production These project teams engage in human-centered prototyping with large language models (LLMs), bringing emerging technologies into real-world use. By operationalizing models in live environments, they deliver actionable insights to sponsors while refining training data, evaluation methods, and technical approaches rooted in state-of-the-art practice. Their work doesn’t just test ideas—it drives measurable impact and shapes the future of applied AI within their sponsors’ organizations.
2) Gaining Professional Presence and Consulting Expertise While many of these master’s-level students arrive with strong technical skills, this experience elevates their ability to lead and consult. They learn to ask the right questions, engage stakeholders, and translate technical capability into business value. These consulting skills are critical for deploying emerging technologies and thriving in ambiguity—identifying the problems that matter most and defining innovative ways to solve them. Asking the question and fitting in with the sponsor.
3) Project Management with Real-World Results Students deliver tangible outcomes they can share with future employers—outcomes that matter to their sponsors. They gain first-hand experience in how data, people, and AI can collaborate to overcome the limitations of today’s machine learning and LLM tools. Every project is grounded in a real business problem identified by the sponsor, making the work both relevant and high-stakes. Win, win, win. These projects are provided free and are: 1) a win for sponsors, 2) a win for students, and 3) a win for the broader community innovation ecosystem—building a pipeline of talent, insight, and momentum. It’s an opportunity you won’t want to miss. Service to Our State and Beyond. We are uniquely positioned to harness our collective expertise and resources to improve quality of life and place for people in Indiana and beyond.
Our project sponsors and partners include the following: Established Companies and Entrepreneurial Startups Our student data science consulting teams are engaging and providing enduring value at every level of commerce.
IU Labs https://iulab.iu.edu/index.html We will provide Data Science as a Service for both for the IU Lab in supporting the Launch Accelerator for Biosciences as well as for the participant cohorts going through the various sponsored programs.
IU Graduate School https://graduate.indiana.edu/index.html Offering an expansion of and a new innovation of the previous experiential learning and collaboration originally developed and incubated in the Luddy School of Informatics, Computing, and Engineering.
IU Innovates https://innovate.iu.edu/innovates/index.html Support both undergraduate and graduate students in participating in IU Innovates. Our Data Science as a Service is provided to supercharge evidence based startup incubation, customer discovery, and finding product market fit. O'Neill School of Public and Environmental Affairs https://oneill.indiana.edu Our student data science consulting teams are providing enduring value within this unit with collaborations with Lilly Family School of Philanthropy - Brad Fulton, Energy Justice Lab - David Konisky, and the Indiana University Public Policy Institute - Tom Guevara.
IU Jacobs School https://innovate.iu.edu/innovates/index.html Conducting exploratory and development projects to support projects that gather ambient feedback and capture student and teacher activities in experiential learning. Gathering data ambiently and providing insights for all participants in experiential learning.
IU University Relations – Community Engagement and Regional/State Economic Development Actively providing data driven insights as well as developing projects to support external facing IU activities targeting key constituencies in business, industry, and government. Currently working to asses and harmonize existing data sources and create dashboards for measuring impact and metrics
Central Indiana Corporate Partnership https://www.cicpindiana.com/ Providing project based consulting support yielding data driven insights and creating data products to support CICP constituents like BioCrossroads and the Indiana Book of Data. http://indianabookofdata.com/
Hamilton Lugar School of Global and International Studies https://hls.indiana.edu/index.html Providing support to startups created from Innovation for Impact, the Hacking for Defense/Diplomacy partnership which focuses on customer discovery and solution ideation of US Government problems. One current startup is working with the pentagon on an AI risk analysis tool for acquisitions