Data scientist says field is crucial to the success of AI boom: The Logic

Published: April 30, 2026

The artificial intelligence boom won't deliver on its promise without greater investment in data science, a data scientist at the Hospital for Sick Children (SickKids) and the University of Toronto tells The Logic.

Lisa Strug, a senior scientist at SickKids and a professor in U of T's departments of statistical sciences and computer science in the Faculty of Arts & Science, said data scientists play a critical - and often overlooked - role in making AI work properly, from cleaning and formatting raw data to identifying errors and rooting out bias. Without that foundational work, she said, "anything that comes out at the end is useless."

As director of the Data Sciences Institute, a U of T institutional strategic initiative, Strug said that data science graduates are snapped up quickly, but that "there are not enough students going into these areas because there are not enough training funds." She also noted that there is currently no federally backed data science centre comparable to Canada's three national AI institutes.

"We can't forget about the part where we make the data useful," Strug told The Logic, "so that the predictions and the discoveries are reliable."

Read more in The Logic