The Student Success team works together as a collective to support you from the moment you deposit through when you walk across the stage at graduation. Our role can be broken down into three primary categories:

Following your deposit, you will transition from working with the Enrollment team, to partnering with the Student Success team to begin preparing for your journey at SMU. During your onboarding process, you’ll be invited to explore any goals or intentions you want to set for yourself and evaluate what it will take to reach them. 

Throughout your time in the program, you’ll have the chance to work with multiple members of the Student Success team and it’s possible that your designated SSA will change. All SSAs receive the same training and are equally prepared to partner with you. 

If you haven’t already, save the Student Success team’s contact information in your phone.  

Phone number: 844.768.5637

Email: studentsuccess@datascience.smu.edu

After being launched well into the Southern Methodist University community by our enrollment specialists and Student Success Advisors, the next level of support available to all students is our Program Leadership Team.

Chair, Department of Statistics and Data Science: Daniel Heitjan, PhD

The mighty captain of our ship in the Department of Statistics and Data Science, Dr. Heitjan oversees the trajectory of the department and the MSDS program. He holds a PhD in Statistics (1985) from the University of Chicago, has over 200 publications in medicine and statistics, and he manages the SMU PhD Program in Biostatistics.

Director, Master of Science in Data Science: Bivin Sadler, PhD

Our fearless leader and wildly popular professor, Dr. Sadler manages the MSDS program. He holds a PhD in Statistics (2014) from SMU, is the winner of the Walsh Award, and is the recent author of Time Series for Data Science (2022). He teaches the Doing Data Science, Stat I, and Time Series courses, and he’s a dedicated educator who goes above and beyond for the students. You can reach him at bsadler@smu.edu.

Assistant Director, MS Programs: Jonathan Thompson, DMA

Running the program behind the scenes, Dr. Thompson is the administrator for the MSDS program. He holds a DMA in Music (2019) from the University of North Texas. He’s your first stop for anything regarding registration, graduation, Immersion, and pretty much anything else. You can reach him at jonathantr@smu.edu.

For more information about the faculty with whom you’ll interact during your time in the program, visit this link.