Projects
The Southern U.S. have been awarded funding for projects designed to use data science and data analytics to address challenges related to healthcare, environmental sustainability, and updating and improving power grids. The funding will be awarded through the “Big Data Spokes” program of the National Science Foundation’s (NSF) Big Data Regional Innovation Hub initiative.
Each Big Data Spoke will work on a challenge that requires big data approaches and solutions. Like the Big Data Hubs, the Spokes will take on a convening and coordinating role as opposed to directly conducting research. Each will gather important stakeholders; engage end users and solution providers; and form multidisciplinary teams to tackle questions no single field can solve alone. However, unlike the Hubs, which aim to span the full range of data-driven challenges and solutions in a geographic region, each Spoke will have a specific, goal-driven mission.
“The Big Data Spokes advance the goals and regional priorities of each Big Data Hub, fusing the strengths of a range of institutions and investigators and applying them to problems that affect the communities and populations within their regions,” said Jim Kurose, assistant director of NSF for Computer and Information Science and Engineering. “We (NSF) are pleased to be making this substantial investment today to accelerate the nation’s big data R&D innovation ecosystem.”
Using Big Data for Environmental Sustainability: Big Data + AI Technology = Accessible, Usable, Useful Knowledge
This project brings together scientists from a dozen institutions in academia, government, and industry to translate big data into meaningful knowledge that supports research and education in environmental sustainability. The project will focus on the Encyclopedia of Life (EOL), the world’s largest database of biological species, and other biodiversity data sources. This project has repurposed VERA to model the effect of social distancing on the
spread of COVID-19, including the SIR model of epidemiology. VERA enables a user to build conceptual models and agent-based simulations, and conduct "what if" virtual experiments. We believe that this interactivity should be a significant boon for learning and education. Smart Privacy for Smart Cities: A Research Collaborative to Protect Privacy and Use Data Responsibly
The long-term vision of the project is to help municipal leaders strengthen their ability to collect, use, and share data in a responsible manner. This will help grow privacy-preserving innovations across applications and geographic boundaries for the public good. In this way, the Smart Privacy for Smart Cities Spoke will serve to increase public knowledge, understanding, and engagement with privacy-related concerns, and ultimately, to promote the public’s trust in smart city technologies and in their local government. Enhanced 3-D Mapping for Habitat, Biodiversity, and Flood Hazard Assessments of Coastal and Wetland Areas of the Southern US
The vision of this project is that communities occupying low-lying coastal areas of the southern US will be protected and develop in a sustainable manner through planning based on knowledge, conservation, and wise use of sensitive lands. Researchers from the University of South Florida’s College of Marine Science and the School of Geosciences at Texas A&M University – Corpus Christi, along with Google Earth Engine are collaborating with the South Big Data Hub through this project to develop more accurate, ultra-high resolution topographic, land cover, and urban environment geospatial products. The project examines in detail areas that were directly impacted by Hurricanes Harvey and Irma in 2017, and identifies flood-prone areas across the region. Integrating Biological Big Data Research into Student Training and Education
The project is a collaborative effort among the University of Tennessee Chattanooga, Tuskegee University, Spelman College, and West Virginia University to integrate and automate biological big data into student training and education. The project will offer training workshops, engage faculty and students in developing a protocol to automate field data collection, and will prototype automated methods to enhance plant digitization. Smart Grids Big Data
This project aims to increase our understanding of the merged data collected from physical systems in order to better understand how energy flows through grids, how to prevent emergencies such as blackouts and brownouts, and how to improve asset management and increase energy efficiency. Large Scale Medical Informatics for Patient Care Coordination and Engagement
This project brings together six universities to design and construct a patient-focused and personalized health system that addresses the fractured nature of healthcare information and the lack of engagement of individuals in their own healthcare. As its first pilot, the researchers will focus on African Americans and Hispanics/Latinos diagnosed with cardiovascular disease.