Partnerships and Outreach

1871

DePaul’s collaboration with 1871 allows our students, faculty, and alumni access to Chicago’s prestigious entrepreneurial technology hub, including programming, special events, workshops, lectures, and networking opportunities with industry leaders.

Cinespace Studios

The School of Cinematic Arts teamed up with Cinespace Chicago, the city's premier movie studio, to provide students with production experience in the midst of a working studio. The 60,000 square foot professional production facility, DePaul Cinespace Studios, houses six shooting stages, a Virtual Production stage, multiple free standing sets, extensive lighting and grip equipment, a green screen cyclorama, sound equipment, scenic shop, editing suites, classrooms and collaboration rooms, and expansive storage and work areas.

DePaul Center for Data Science

The DePaul Center for Data Science (CDS) is a research, educational and collaborative center that focuses on the applications of data science. The Center seeks out partnerships with industry as well as educational and nonprofit organizations (for example, our Motorola Solutions Foundation Scholars Program) to plan and conduct joint analytics projects that provide students with an invaluable opportunity to work on real-world problems and gain problem-solving experience in data science.

Dr. Curtis J. and Mrs. Gina Crawford Institute for Business Technology Leadership

The Dr. Curtis J. and Mrs. Gina Crawford Institute for Business Technology Leadership provides students with intensive and intentional career-based leadership education through training, mentoring and direct work experiences that promote social mobility and ethical leadership. The institute facilitates interdisciplinary collaboration between CDM and the Driehaus College of Business, where it is housed.

Grace Hopper Celebration

Each year, the School of Computing sponsors several undergraduate female students to attend the Grace Hopper Celebration of women in computing. GHC is the world’s largest gathering of women technologists, produced by AnitaB.org.

iD Lab

CDM’s Innovation Development Lab (iD-Lab) serves as a model for university and corporate partnerships in the area of technology innovation. The iD-Lab offers a space to build the bridges between DePaul and companies to grow into a leading technology innovation and research hub. Current work in the lab focuses on three primary areas: development of technology innovations projects with member companies; education through training, workshops, and practical experiences; and research on technology innovation. Partners include companies such as Abbott, Allstate, Bosch, CareerBuilder, CDW, and Digital Mint.

Jarvis Student Center for Innovation and Collaboration

The Jarvis Center for Innovation and Collaboration connects students with industry professionals, creators and experts-in-residence. The center is an 8,000 square-foot multi-disciplinary, collaborative space that inspires both faculty- and student-led curricular and extra-curricular innovation and strengthens the academia-to-industry pipeline.

The center also houses DePaul Originals Game Studio, an interdisciplinary lab that brings together game artists, designers, engineers, sound designers, and producers to work together in an ongoing large studio experience focused on using the Unreal Engine. The studio produces and publishes work that will be shipped to publicly visible platforms like Steam, Xbox, PS4, and Switch.

PUSH Studio

PUSH Studio is an interdisciplinary design studio involving students and faculty partnering with industry professionals and social impact organizations to apply human-centered design methods to emerging technology challenges.

Staff Me Up

Staff Me Up a hiring network platform for production jobs in TV, film, digital, media, and entertainment. As an academic partner, DePaul students and alumni have access to industry specific job opportunities, professional tools including an online profile with their credits, and access to events connecting them with organizations and employers. Staff Me Up’s goal is to help ensure that diversity and inclusion are incorporated throughout the hiring process.

Unreal Academic Partner Program

The Unreal Academic Partner Program recognizes exemplary universities that integrate Epic Games’ Unreal Engine into their classes and labs. Selected schools are committed to providing high-quality educational opportunities with experienced faculty, innovative facilities (like our Virtual and Augmented Design Lab, DePaul Originals Game Studio, VR editing suite, and labs that house hundreds of workstations equipped with UE), and an environment where students can thrive and graduate career-ready. UE gives our students and faculty free access to the top 20 UE items in the marketplace, access to Epic experts, advanced information on internships and events, and more.

Chicago Housing Authority

Since 2016, the Chicago Housing Authority (CHA) has partnered with DePaul’s Jarvis College of Computing and Digital Media to offer youth in public housing valuable skills in documentary filmmaking, screenwriting, and photography. Through the six-week summer intensives, high school-aged students are trained by our award-winning faculty, mentored by our graduate students, visited by industry guest speakers, and taken on a number of experiential field trips to get inspired by our city’s rich arts culture.

Cyberclinic

DePaul's new Cybersecurity Clinic is an interdisciplinary collaboration between CDM’s School of Computing, the Driehaus College of Business, and the College of Law. The Clinic provides students with real-world experience working on cybersecurity projects for community-based nonprofit organizations.

Matters at Play

Matters at Play is a transdisciplinary design lab partnering in the creation of interactive advocacy solutions for positive social transformations – especially for social justice, health, and environmental issues. M@P both incubates and launches projects for real-world impact as part of a faculty-student collaborative as well as in the classroom context. Partners include advocacy, government, nonprofit, and academic organizations looking to use interactivity in both digital and analog contexts with the goal of informing and transforming society and its people.

SPARK Center

DePaul’s Strategic Partnerships for the Advancement of Research and Knowledge (SPARK) Center turns research into accessible materials that invite community partners into informed conversations that shape the future. SPARK’s data science, design, and AI teams can model and visualize the history of a challenge—as well as multiple predicted scenarios for the future, providing far-reaching impacts that benefit local, national, and global communities.

Technology for Social Good Lab

The Technology for Social Good Research and Design Lab at CDM (TSG) brings together faculty, students, and other collaborators to design, build, and study tools with the goal of fostering equitable education and collective action in urban communities. Taking a human-centered approach, research projects draw from fields such as learning sciences, computer science, human-computer interaction, experience design, data science, and psychology to address social issues, particularly in the areas of empowerment, learning, and human development.

Chicago Public Schools

Through several NSF-funded projects, CDM Interim Dean Lucia Dettori has partnered with Chicago Public Schools (CPS) to ensure that all CPS high school students take at least one relevant and compelling computer science course (Exploring Computer Science, ECS), and that middle and elementary school children are exposed to computational thinking integrated in other disciplines. This partnership, which also includes computer scientists from Loyola, UIC, and educational researchers from The Learning Partnership, has now been formalized as the Chicago Alliance for Equity in Computer Science (CAFECS).

Coleman Entrepreneurship Center

The Coleman Entrepreneurship Center (CEC) is housed in DePaul’s Driehaus College of Business, but their experimental programs, vibrant ecosystem, and academic curriculum cultivate a foundation for entrepreneurial success for the entire DePaul community. Several CDM students are interested in founding a startup, learning about funding opportunities, and building sustainable businesses. CEC is the hub to connect, advise, and inspire entrepreneurship and innovation in creating businesses with purpose and passion.

Rosalind Franklin

DePaul University and Rosalind Franklin University of Science and Medicine are funding interdisciplinary faculty research projects bringing together AI, biomedical discovery and health care. Projects involving CDM School of Computing faculty include combining wearable sensors with GPS to prevent injury, and analyzing neurons in the brainstem to discover boundaries that control speech and swallowing.

The Second City

In collaboration with the The Second City, the School of Cinematic Arts offers graduate and undergraduate degrees comedy filmmaking. Students attend classes at The Second City as well as within our expansive studio and classroom facilities at Cinespace. The curriculum gives students the opportunity to create, develop, and showcase their comedic voice and original material through a methodology honed over decades by The Second City.

Sinai Health System

Sinai Health System and DePaul University have joined forces to address critical health inequities in Chicago through the creation of a community-driven, applied research institute. Sinai Health System’s research arm, Sinai Urban Health Institute (SUHI), and DePaul will collaborate on education, research projects, and development and implementation of programs aimed at addressing social and health equity challenges. Roselyne Tchoua, assistant professor in the School of Computing, was recently named a SUHI Equity Research Fellow, where she aims to use machine learning to reduce repeat visits to the emergency department.