Graduate Program

Graduate Program

Social Data Analytics (SoDA) is the integration of social scientific, computational, informational, statistical, and visual analytics approaches to the analysis of large or complex data that arise from human interaction. SoDA merges social science and data science to improve our ability to learn from social data. The Penn State SoDA Program is the first of its kind in the world, and offers both doctoral and undergraduate degrees. For information about the B.S. in Social Data Analytics, please visit the Undergraduate section of the website.

The SoDA graduate program enables students from diverse graduate programs to attain and be identified with an interdisciplinary array of tools, techniques, and methodologies for social data analytics, while maintaining a close association with a home discipline. The SoDA graduate program was modeled on, and developed under, the Big Data Social Science IGERT (BDSS).

SoDA offers a dual-title PhD in cooperation with five programs — Human Development & Family Studies, Informatics, Political Science, and Sociology — and a doctoral minor available to Penn State PhD students in any program. Currently, the SoDA graduate program has students from twelve different departments across seven of Penn State’s colleges.

The SoDA graduate program enables students from diverse graduate programs to attain and be identified with an interdisciplinary array of tools, techniques, and methodologies for social data analytics, while maintaining a close association with a home discipline. The SoDA graduate program was modeled on, and developed under, the Big Data Social Science IGERT (BDSS).

SoDA offers a dual-title PhD in cooperation with five programs — Human Development & Family Studies, Informatics, Political Science, and Sociology — and a doctoral minor available to Penn State PhD students in any program. Currently, the SoDA graduate program has students from twelve different departments across seven of Penn State’s colleges.

On this website you will find information on requirements of the SoDA graduate program, course offerings, eligibility and how to apply.

We also invite you to meet current and former graduate students, and learn about their impressive scientific research and accomplishments at Penn State and beyond.