A Star is Born: Meet our new director, Steve!
Steve Devlin joined USF in 2004 and recently became the director of the MSDS program. Continue reading to learn about his background, research interests, and what he’s looking forward to!
Tell us about your background.
I’m from New York originally. I did my PhD in math at the University of Maryland, and then a postdoc at MIT. I was trained as a pure mathematician. My thesis work was in the representation theory of p-adic groups.
What drew you to joining the University of San Francisco in 2004?
USF’s math department reminded me of the department where I was as an undergrad. The people were (and still are) great, and I liked the fact that USF offered the opportunity to be flexible as an academic. The chance to live in San Francisco was also a big draw.
How did you become interested in Data Science?
That’s been something of a process. After I came to USF I started doing more applied research. That work involved a fair amount of coding and working with data. At the same time, we were witnessing the meteoric rise of data science in the Bay Area. It seemed like a natural way for our students to gain some marketable skills, so I kept learning and teaching more data science. The more I learned, the more I enjoyed it.
Can you talk about your work in game theory and sports analytics?
My work on game theory really started because I was interested in networks. I read a few papers about how the underlying structure of a network can influence a dynamical system that’s running on top, and started thinking about those types of problems. When the dynamics are defined by an evolutionary game interesting things can happen. We were able to find simple network metrics that did a good job predicting the dynamics. Recently, I’ve been working more on problems related to sports analytics. One current project is about the different methodologies used for rating teams. Another is about how to understand group interactions in basketball lineups. Sports analytics is great because there’s a ton of data, lots of interesting problems, and lots of conventional wisdom to question.
What are you looking forward to most as the Director of MSDS?
I’m really looking forward to spending more time with the faculty and students. The cohort nature of the program, along with its intensity, makes for a strong community. And it’s exciting being a part of that student journey from bootcamp to employment.
What are some of your favorite things to do in your free time?
We have two kids with lots of activities that fill up much of that free time (in a fun way). Beyond that I try to get outside and run as often as I can (SF has lots of great running routes). I can also make a passable Texas-style smoked brisket.
