A group of Master in Interdisciplinary Data Science (MIDS) students recently traveled to Milwaukee, Wisconsin to present their capstone project at the 2026 Symposium on Data Science and Statistics (SDSS). Hosted by the American Statistical Association (ASA), the conference brings together data scientists, statisticians, and computer scientists to share ideas, learn new methods, and see how data science is being used in practice.
Photo credit: Meron Gedrago
The event, held April 28 through May 1, focused on areas like data science applications, education and professional development, systems and infrastructure, and artificial intelligence. For the students, it was a chance to step outside the classroom and be part of a much larger conversation in the field.
The team’s work comes from their capstone project, “Does Access to School Meals Improve Student Outcomes? Evidence from Community Eligibility Provision Participation in North Carolina.” A capstone is a year long project where second year students partner with an organization to work on a real problem. These partners can be companies, nonprofits, health care organizations, or research centers. The partner brings a question they care about, and the students spend the academic year analyzing data and building solutions. Along the way, they meet regularly with their partner and produce work that often includes both insights and usable code.
This group partnered with the Duke University World Food Policy Center, working with Research Manager Jack Daly. Their project asks a straightforward but important question: does access to school meals improve student outcomes? The focus is on the Community Eligibility Provision, a federal program that allows schools in higher poverty areas to offer free breakfast and lunch to all students. The program is meant to make sure students have reliable access to food and to reduce administrative burden for schools. Even so, not all eligible schools take part.
“Going into the session, I honestly expected people to heavily critique our work, especially because this was my first conference presentation and the room was filled with experienced academics and industry professionals,” said Kayla Haeussler. “Instead, I found the atmosphere to be much more collaborative and encouraging. It helped me realize that conferences are not only about defending your work, but also about sharing ideas and contributing to a broader conversation.”
Reflecting on the experience, team member Diego Rodriguez said, “The symposium showed how broad the field has become, but also how important strong statistical thinking still is. It reinforced that data scientists need to connect technical tools to real world decisions.”
Using data from the North Carolina Education Research Data Center, the team studied how participation in this program relates to academic performance and student behavior among public school students in grades three through eight across North Carolina. Since the program began in 2014, participation has grown by 132 percent, which gives researchers a useful way to compare schools that participate with those that do not. The project looks at whether consistent access to meals is linked to changes in test scores and behavioral outcomes. It also fills an important gap, since this data has not previously been used to study the program’s impact within North Carolina. The findings add to ongoing conversations about school nutrition, educational equity, and how public resources are used.
For Fan Xu, the experience was just as much about learning from others as it was about presenting. “The plenary talk challenged how I think about AI,” she said. “It was a reminder to be more thoughtful about the data we use and how we train models, and to step outside our comfort zones and learn from people in other fields.”
The capstone team includes Kayla Haeussler, who presented at the conference, along with Diego Rodriguez, Peter de Guzman, Meron Gedrago, and Fan Xu. The project was mentored by Andrea Lane, Assistant Professor of the Practice in the Duke Social Science Research Institute (SSRI).
With support from MIDS and the World Food Policy Center, the students were able to share their work with a national audience. SDSS also helped cover portions of the registration cost for some of the team members.
Meron Gedrago emphasized the value of both presenting and engaging with attendees during the conference. “I appreciated that attendees took the time to engage with our poster, ask genuine questions, and offer thoughtful insights,” she said. “Some of the feedback validated our approach, while other questions pushed me to think more critically about our assumptions and analysis.”
It’s a strong example of what the capstone experience is meant to do: give students the chance to work on real problems and contribute to research that matters.