Provided

The winning T-shirt contest design by Ithaca High School student Sofia Escobedo-Tejado.

Everyone is affected by massive amounts of data collected daily -- including Google searches, Facebook and credit card purchases, as well as scientific data from sensor networks and biometric devices.

Cornell's Department of Mathematics will explore the opportunities as well as risks of this data collection during April, National Math Awareness Month. This year's theme: "Math, Statistics and the Data Deluge."

A public lecture by Paul Velleman, associate professor of statistics and a specialist in data analysis, is slated for April 21, 1 p.m., in 228 Malott Hall.

Math Awareness Month includes a T-shirt design contest at Ithaca High School; this year's 35 entries were narrowed down to five high school students. The winning entry, by 11th-grader Sofia Escobedo-Tejado, was selected by Cornell mathematics faculty, staff, graduate students, undergraduate math majors and members of the Math Club. Her design illustrates the data deluge with a computer, an umbrella and a "rain" of binary numbers. T-shirts will be available for purchase at Velleman's April 21 talk, or by emailing Heather Peterson at hko1@cornell.edu.

As part of the celebration, the Cornell math department also will host public school classroom activities led by faculty members and graduate students, April 16-20, at Ithaca High School.

Math Awareness Month promotes public understanding of and appreciation for mathematics, said Mary Ann Huntley, senior lecturer and outreach director for the department.

Linda B. Glaser is staff writer for the College of Arts and Sciences.