iMPACT

Chaitan Baru, Senior Advisor for Data Science for the Computer and Information Science and Engineering (CISE) Directorate at NSF, will visit campus January 15 to present a seminar on current NSF Big Data and Data Science program and activities. Science faculty and students are invited to attend the seminar, which will be held at 9 am in the Valley Library, Willamette Industries Seminar Room (room 3622) on the third floor.

Chaitan Baru, Senior Advisor for Data Science at NSF

Baru will present an overview of current programs and activities related to Big Data and Data Science at NSF and highlight inter-agency engagements within this area. He will also discuss future directions for Data Science research, education, and infrastructure.

NSF’s BIGDATA program seeks novel approaches in computer science, statistics, computational science, and mathematics, along with innovative applications in domain science, including social and behavioral sciences, geosciences, education, biology, the physical sciences, and engineering that lead towards the further development of the interdisciplinary field of data science. Read more about NSF’s BIGDATA program current solicitation. Deadline for proposals is February 9, 2016.

Considering that Data Science is a rapidly emerging, evolving field and discipline, Baru will take questions and allow ample time for discussions about where the field ought to be going given what we know today.

Currently on assignment with NSF, Baru is a Distinguished Scientist and Associate Director of Data Initiatives at the San Diego Supercomputer Center (SDSC), at the University of California, San Diego where he works on applied and applications-oriented research problems related to data management and data analytics. He leads the Advanced Cyberinfrastructure Development (ACID) Group at SDSC and is also Director of the Center for Large-scale Data Systems research (CLDS).

Baru has participated in a number of “data cyberinfrastructure” initiatives, including as Principal Investigator (PI) of the OpenTopography project; Cyberinfrastructure Lead, Tropical Ecology, Assessment and Monitoring network (TEAM); Co-Investigator of the Cyberinfrastructure for Comparative Effectiveness Research project (CYCORE); Member of the founding Senior Management Team of the National Ecologial Observatory Network (NEON) and Co-PI of the NEON Cyberinfrastructure Testbed; Co-PI of the CUAHSI Hydrologic Information Systems (CUAHSI-HIS); Director, NEES Cyberinfrastructure Center (NEESit); PI/Project Director, Geosciences Network (GEON); and member of the How Much Information? project.