ANNOUNCEMENTS ARCHIVE

The National Science Data Fabric (NSDF) Webinar on October 19 will feature Gwen Jacobs, who is the co-director of the Hawai‘i Data Science Institute and Director of Cyberinfrastructure for the University of Hawai'i  Information Technology Services. She is also on the steering committee for the West Big Data Innovation Hub.

The title of Jacobs’ talk is “Cyberinfrastructure in Paradise: Enabling Science and Community Impact at the University of Hawai'i” and it can be joined by clicking on the following URL: https://ucsd.zoom.us/j/93591568899. The October 19 webinar will be held at 9am HT/12pm PT/1pm MT/2pm CT/3pm ET.

The University of Hawai'i is a world class research institution with strengths in astronomy, ocean and atmospheric science, biomedicine, indigenous science and more across the 10 campus system.  For the last 10 years, strategic investments in cyberinfrastructure, data science, team science and multidisciplinary research have had a transformative impact on the research mission, education and workforce development and brought many benefits to the state. Jacobs’ talk will highlight the strategies, lessons learned and opportunities for the future of research in Hawai'i. 

Additional information about the NSDF is available at http://nationalsciencedatafabric.org/.

Western New Mexico University has announced a new career opportunity for a data scientist to work with their Grants and Rural Initiatives Team. The data scientist will provide full lifecycle qualitative and quantitative analysis and reporting for the “Con Ganas” Title V grant designed to improve WNMU’s institutional ability to better serve its Hispanic learners and communities. Details are at the following URL: https://wnmu.peopleadmin.com/postings/1501. 

Data in Brief is a multidisciplinary, open access, peer-reviewed journal, which mainly publishes short, digestible data articles that describe and provide access to research data. In addition, it publishes review and perspective articles that elaborate on data sharing practices, and letters to editors that comment on datasets previously published in Data in Brief. Data in Brief contributes to open science and improves reproducibility by making data and the associated research more discoverable, opening doors for collaboration, and reducing duplication of effort.

The journal supports the FAIR Data Principles, which state that research data should be Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable. Therefore, the mission of Data in Brief is to make research data accessible, discoverable, citable, comprehensible, reviewed, reproducible and reusable.

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 The journal welcomes submissions from all subject areas. Submissions regarding data from preliminary research, replication studies, proof of concept research, and negative results are also welcome.

 Link to: https://www.sciencedirect.com/journal/data-in-brief 

The Socio-Environmental Knowledge Commons (SEEKCommons) Fellowship offers graduate students and early-career researchers an opportunity to work on socio-environmental research with open technologies. The program has been designed to encourage new integrative practices involving environmental and climate action research with open science practices and provide a space for fellows and network members to connect on research issues, challenges and solutions.

SEEKCommons is dedicated to building pathways for horizontal collaborations across Science and Technology Studies (STS), Open Science, and socio-environmental researchers and community organizers. The fellowship application, which is due on October 15, is located at the following URL: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1kAaunBAk9TpRE1Hbzb-vuQ2j0XcwdvTsNXGS1D6imyU/edit.

The West Hub, through UC Berkeley, and the Centro de Inteligencia Artificial (IACenter) have signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) that creates a five-year cooperative partnership. IACenter is renowned for its vision in fostering talent, spearheading innovations, and pioneering technology development by harnessing the power of artificial intelligence, data science, IoT, edge, and cloud computing.The teams plan to work together to explore synergistic collaboration that supports the development of cross-border programs and activities that advance scholarship. Specifically, the organizations plan to focus on exchange related to data- and AI-intensive opportunities for students, workforce development, and thematic priority areas for both organizations like water resources. 

Most recently, the West Hub and the IACenter were co-hosts of the Data-Driven Water Systems Solutions for Communities session at World Water Week on Monday, August 21. The event explored the intersections of AI-centric data, analysis, and water research and management as it relates to community-driven actions for equitable water solutions. It featured the presentation Promoting the Implementation of Multi-Disciplinary Data and AI-Driven Technology at a Water-Stressed Irrigation District in Northern México, which was authored by Alfredo Granados-Olivas, Víctor H. Esquivel-Ceballos, Rafael Corral-Díaz, Eduardo Castillo-Luna, José Mireles Jr., Manuel Resendez, and Joam M. Rincon of the IACenter. 

“We are thrilled to have the opportunity to collaborate with colleagues at the IACenter,” said West Hub Director Ashley Atkins. “And we look forward to working together to further cross-border collaboration in this emerging space in ways that can be beneficial for both regions.”

"Uniting the strengths of West Hub and IACenter is a strategic move towards global excellence. We, at the IACenter, have always believed in the boundless potential of merging technology with real-world applications, and this partnership amplifies that belief,” said IACenter Director Eduardo Castillo. ”Together, we'll dive deep into the realm of AI and data science, aiming to make monumental strides in areas of shared interest, particularly in sustainable water solutions. This is the dawn of a new era of collaborative research and innovation.”

By Thomas Frost, Jr., SDSC Intern

At the recent International Supercomputing Conference (ISC) in Hamburg, Germany, West Big Data Innovation Hub Principal Investigator Christine Kirkpatrick, who is the Research Data Services director at the San Diego Supercomputer Center (SDSC) at UC San Diego, participated in two Birds of a Feather (BoF) discussions (gatherings among like-minded colleagues to discuss topics of shared interest): Bridging the HPC/Data Divide: Data Challenges and Solutions in the HPC World and A National Science Data Fabric to Democratize Data Access and Reusability.

In Bridging the HPC/Data Divide: Data Challenges and Solutions in the HPC World, Kirkpatrick and a team of international experts continued conversations from the data and high performance computing (HPC) communities held at the Supercomputing Conference 22 in Dallas, Texas, and International Data Week in Seoul, Korea. In this BoF, they addressed specific data challenges and solutions in the HPC arena and discussed paths for closer collaboration in the future. The BoF speakers included Kirkpatrick; Mark Gray and Maciej Cytowski from the Pawsey Supercomputing Centre in Australia; Marek Michalewicz from the Sano Centre for Computational Personalised Medicine - International Research Foundation; and Maijastiina Arvola and Hanna Koivula from the CSC - IT Center for Science in Finland. The discussion specifically probed topics such as data management techniques, including robust vocabularies and new methods of producing, curating and mining HPC-generated data.

In the session A National Science Data Fabric to Democratize Data Access and Reusability, Kirkpatrick engaged the data science community in discussion about the challenges and opportunities of the National Science Data Fabric (NSDF) project and other similar efforts to connect an open network of institutions, including resource-disadvantaged institutions. She worked with Jay Lofstead from the Sandia National Laboratories in New Mexico, Valerio Pascucci from the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in Washington, and Michela Taufer and Jakob Luettgau from the Global Computing Laboratory at University of Tennessee Knoxville to report on NSDF achievements aiming to develop a data fabric that can take advantage of economies to fill the missing middle in our current computational infrastructure. In this BoF, the group discussed an array of opportunities for collaboration between the NSDF project and international organizations.

“Infrastructure by its nature is very integrative,” Kirkpatrick said. “Decades ago one might focus on only one aspect of computation, but to address big science questions we must work across HPC, cloud and storage platforms—a variety of open source frameworks—all with a deep understanding of the underlying use cases and data challenges specific to the domain. This will require a more tightly coupled data fabric like NSDF, and closer collaboration from many types of experts, including HPC and data people.”

Women in Data Science Hawai’i ‘23 will be hosted virtually this year by the University of Hawai’i at Mānoa and Chaminade University. It will take place on Friday, April 28 (12-4pm HT). Registration is free at https://tinyurl.com/widshawaii2023.

Led by New Mexico State University, the project focuses on cross-border relationships

By Kimberly Mann Bruch

Next week, the United Nations (UN) 2023 Water Conference will take place for the first time since 1977 in New York. Highlighted on the conference’s Water Action Agenda, which calls for efforts that “unite the world for water,” is the Transboundary Groundwater Resilience (TGR) Network . Led by Sam Fernald from New Mexico State University, West Hub Executive Director Ashley Atkins and West Hub Principal Investigator Christine Kirkpatrick serve as co-principal investigators on the TGR project.

“We are honored to have a seat at this global table to discuss our work on integrating system science and data science in support of knowledge and decision-making related to groundwater systems in transboundary areas,” said Kirkpatrick, director of the San Diego Supercomputer Center’s Research Data Service Division. “Our goal is to not only work with bordering national and state government agencies about aquifer systems and resiliency, but also non-profits, consultants, and communities to advance data-driven solutions.”

On Monday, March 20, the TGR Network will host a Call to Action: Connecting the World for Transboundary Groundwater Resilience  in conjunction with New York Water Week, which is being held in parallel with the UN Water Conference. At the event, Catherine Cramer, the Deputy Director of the West Hub, will give a talk to share insights on Data Literacy and Network Literacy in Community Contexts. West Hub Technical Project Manager Julie Christopher will present on FAIR Principles of Data Management. Additionally, Ilya Zaslavsky, a West Hub affiliated researcher, will discuss his Network Analysis to Strengthen a Transboundary Groundwater Resilience NoN work. 

"We look forward to connecting with water decision-makers and researchers from around the world to make progress on innovative solutions to achieve transboundary groundwater resilience,” said Atkins. “We encourage you to join us by filling out this form to indicate your interest."

Let the TGR team know if you will be attending UN Water 2023 in person and would like to connect there about transboundary groundwater cooperation.

The WiCyS Conference is the premier event to recruit, retain, and advance women in cybersecurity. WiCyS brings together women in cybersecurity from academia, research, government, and industry. The 10th Annual WiCyS Conference will be held March 16-18 at the Gaylord Rockies Resort and Convention Center in Denver, Colorado. Registration opens on February 6.

The Data Science at Scale Summer School (DSSSS) is seeking upper-level undergraduate and graduate students looking for a challenging internship. The DSSSS is a paid summer internship program in the Information Sciences Group (CCS-3) within the Computer, Computational and Statistical Sciences (CCS) Division. The DSSSS brings outstanding students to the laboratory to participate in data intensive science projects. Particular focus is placed on using big data technologies to gain insights from scientific data.  More information on the DSS Summer School and related opportunities at LANL is available at https://www.lanl.gov/projects/national-security-education-center/information-science-technology/summer-schools/data-science-scale-summer-school/index.php.  The DSS Summer School job ads are IRC115373 and IRC115427 and can be viewed at https://jobs.lanl.gov.  

The Water and Climate Coalition launched a joint members’ publication to showcase climate-resilient water resources management actions in the lead-up to COP27 and the UN 2023 Water Conference. Read more about the West Hub-affiliated Transboundary Groundwater Resilience (TGR) Network in the publication’s Climate Resilient Transboundary Water Management: Data-Driven, Internationally Shared, and Community-Accessible Modelling of Coupled Human and Natural Systems article. The TGR network connects water, social, data, and systems science to advance transboundary groundwater resilience.

The National Student Data Corps (NSDC) is a community-developed initiative that teaches data science fundamentals to students across the United States and around the world, with a special focus on underserved institutions and students. NSDC Chapters provide a community of support for data science learners of all ages, backgrounds, and skill levels. Get started today and join the U.S. West Regional Chapter to benefit from learning resources, mentorship, research, and career opportunities to launch your data science journeys!

The University of Washington (UW) eScience Institute recently selected Vani Mandava as the Head of Engineering for the newly formed UW Scientific Software Engineering Center (SSEC) to build a world-class software engineering team to transform scientific software development.

Mandava represented the West Big Data Innovation Hub on its Steering Committee and at the national Big Hubs level as a National Coordination Committee representative. It was through close collaborations facilitated by the West Hub, that the UW team was originally connected with Mandava, a relationship that will now be transformative for supporting this new center. 

She most recently led Trustworthy AI research engagements at Microsoft Research Outreach as Director of Data Science, and has over two decades of experience related to shipping software that scales across clients, enterprise and cloud services. She has driven numerous successful collaborations across academic, government and industry research to enable robust and reproducible scientific tools and pipelines. Mandava is deeply interested in creating software driven solutions that can contribute to open and reproducible science. 

“I am excited to bring together best practices and talent from the software industry, with deep commitment to fundamental science and sustainable tool development under one roof at a world class academic institution such as UW,” Mandava said. “Through SSEC and eScience Institute, academic researchers now have this golden opportunity to build the next generation of software solutions that will unlock the potential of large scientific datasets to accomplish significant research breakthroughs.”

Last month, in conjunction with the West Hub’s sustainability efforts, the NSF awarded approximately $12.5 million to ten projects within the Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable (FAIR) Open Science (OS) Research Coordination Networks (RCN) program. Principal Investigator Christine Kirkpatrick will lead the RCN FARR: FAIR in machine learning (ML), artificial intelligence (AI) readiness and reproducibility award, which presents a unique funding and future partnership opportunity for the Hub to work with a wider network of information, data, and domain scientists in the ML and AI communities. The project will encourage better research practices and shared data accessibility based on the core FAIR data principles across multidisciplinary communities and leverage relationships with world-class institutions including: the Scripps Institute of Oceanography (SIO), the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA), and the EarthCube Office. This project builds on the foundation of UC San Diego’s FAIR-related West Hub efforts to meet new and emerging needs. In its remaining time, the West Hub will partner with the RCN FAIROS to host workshops, community events, and other forums to emphasize the importance of FAIR data principles within the ML and AI domains when applicable.

The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine has announced that Christine Kirkpatrick of the San Diego Supercomputer Center (SDSC) at UC San Diego will be joining their Board on Research Data and Information (BRDI).