With the massive amounts of data collected and stored every day, the need to make sense of this data has become essential in many academic and industrial domains. Data mining is an interdisciplinary field focused on analyzing large amounts of data to discover patterns, and is an integral part of the data-driven decision-making process. Taught by the San Diego Supercomputer Center’s researchers and practitioners, the Data Mining Essentials Workshop I introduces students to the tools and techniques used to explore, analyze, and leverage data to construct data mining solutions to scientific and business problems. Topics include the data mining process, methods for data exploration and preparation, fundamental machine learning algorithms, and model evaluation approaches. Hands-on exercises will allow students to apply their new skills and work with data analysis tools.