An IDEaS Distinguished Lecture: Dr. Chaitan Baru, Senior Advisor for Data Science in CISE at the National Science Foundation

"Harnessing the Data Revolution," on Friday, December 1, 2-3 pm in the TSRB Auditorium

Seminar attendees are invited to attend the IDEaS Networking Social from 3-4 pm in TSRB. Refreshments will be served.

Abstract:

Harnessing Data for 21st Century Science and Engineering (aka Harnessing the Data Revolution, HDR) is one of NSF's six "Big Research Ideas," aimed at supporting fundamental research in data science and engineering; developing a cohesive, federated approach to the research data infrastructure needed to power this revolution; and developing a 21st-century data-capable workforce. HDR will enable new modes of data-driven discovery allowing researchers to ask and answer new questions in frontier science and engineering, generate new knowledge and understanding by working with domain experts, and accelerate discovery and innovation. This initiative builds on NSF's history of data science investments. We will describe community activities related to HDR including workshops on translational data science, open knowledge network, and “Data Science Corps”. As the only federal agency supporting all fields of science and engineering, NSF is uniquely positioned to help ensure that our country's future is one enriched and improved by data.
 
Bio:

Chaitan Baru, PhD, is Senior Advisor for Data Science in the Computer and Information Science and Engineering Directorate at the US National Science Foundation. He co-chairs the NSF working group on Harnessing the Data Revolution Big Idea; serves as advisor to the NSF Big Data Regional Innovation Hubs and Spokes program (BD Hubs/Spokes); manages the cross-Foundation NSF BIGDATA program; and, is a member of the NSF Transdisciplinary Research in Principles of Data Science (TRIPODS) program. He was instrumental in recruiting Amazon Web Services (AWS), Google, and Microsoft Azure as partners in the NSF BIGDATA program. He co-chairs the Big Data Inter-agency Working Group of the Networking and IT R&D program (NITRD) of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. He is one of the primary co-authors of the Federal Big Data R&D Strategic Plan, released May 2016. He is also a member of the NSTC Data Science Interagency Working Group and represents NSF on the Federal Data Cabinet. He is on assignment at NSF from the San Diego Supercomputer Center, University of California San Diego, where he is a Distinguished Scientist, and directs the Center for Large-scale Data Systems Research (clds.sdsc.edu) and the Advanced Cyberinfrastructure Development Group (acid.sdsc.edu).

Host:

Srinivas Aluru, professor in the College of Computing, and co-executive director of the Institute for Data Engineering and Science at Georgia Tech