A Meaningful Spring Break: CDS Students Partner with MassMutual to Serve the Community Through Data
While most Boston University (BU) students chased warm weather this spring break, twenty-one graduate and undergraduate data science students headed to the Seaport District—not to relax, but to put their skills to work for the city they call home during the Spring 2026 Data Days for Good (DD4G).
Data Days for Good is an annual community impact and mentorship initiative—a partnership between BU’s Faculty of Computing & Data Science (CDS), the CDS Duan Family Spark! Initiative, MassMutual, and local nonprofit partners. Every year, this week of data service brings BU students and MassMutual scientists, engineers, and analysts together in a focused sprint to address pressing local challenges. Spring 2026 marks the fourth year of this collaboration.
Speaking about her DD4G experience, BU Data Science Master’s student Shravani Maskar (‘26) said, “While I’ve worked on team projects before, this felt different. We were all in the same room at the same time, dividing tasks in real time and checking in with each other constantly.”
This year, DD4G teams tackled projects ranging from helping the City of Cambridge improve metadata management and develop systematic ways to monitor public health to creating an interactive dashboard and AI agent for the Investigation and Equity and Justice Unit at GBH News, a leading public media organization, to assist their reporting on shifting demographics in Gateway Cities.
According to Maskar, who worked on the City of Cambridge team, client meetings “added a layer of real-world context that made the work feel purposeful and exciting.”
BU Data Science Master's student Dang Dinh ('26) and his team spent the week helping a senior investigative reporter at MuckRock, a nonprofit collaborative newsroom, uncover patterns in FDA device complaints and recalls to improve patient safety outcomes. “Working on a real client project with actual public health challenges pushed me to think like a practicing data scientist rather than a student,” Dinh said.
Equally powerful as the problem-solving these students accomplished was the mentorship they received and the relationships they developed.
Chaudhry Wasam Ur Rehman (MSDS ‘26) found the MassMutual mentors “incredibly knowledgeable and approachable,” noting that “they provided timely feedback on our project deliverables and helped us navigate technical challenges.” Beyond technical guidance, Wasam Ur Rehman recalls the mentors’ “willingness to share insights about industry practices and career development was particularly valuable.” BU undergraduate Kai Gallemore (CDS ‘26) agreed, adding, “Learning about things they might have done differently when they were our age was super inspiring and eye-opening.”
For undergraduate senior Mia Vargas (CDS ‘26), these opportunities to learn and grow left a lasting impression. “I feel like I learned a lot by participating, and if I weren't currently a senior, I'd absolutely want to do something like this again,” she reflected.
Offering more than just technical challenges, Data Days for Good fosters collaboration, mentorship, and meaningful impact, demonstrating how data science can make a real difference in the community.
DD4G shows aspiring data scientists that they do not need to wait for a full-time career to do meaningful work—for these twenty-one BU students, they only needed a spring break.
