ANNOUNCEMENTS ARCHIVE

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).