Planning Grant: I/UCRC for Spatiotemporal Thinking and Computing

Harvard University, Cambridge MA

Investigators

Abstract

Planning Grant: I/UCRC for Spatiotemporal Thinking and Computing 1160979 George Mason University; Chaowei Yang 1160990 Harvard University; Peter Bol 1160959 University of California-Santa Barbara; Keith Clarke George Mason University (GMU), Harvard University (HU), and the University of CaliforniaSanta Barbara (UCSB) will conduct a planning meeting with industry, university, government agencies, and associations to a) determine the feasibility and viability of developing a center for spatiotemporal thinking and computing, and b) plan the research agenda for the proposed center. The proposal seeks to establish an I/UCRC for spatiotemporal thinking and computing as a collaboration platform among universities, industry, government agencies, and other organizations to enable research and education to 1) improve the US geospatial research infrastructure base; 2) enhance the intellectual capacity within the future engineering and science workforce; and 3) establish the US leadership in spatiotemporal thinking and computing. The proposed center will be established based upon the previous successes at each of the three sites including: a) the Center for Intelligent Spatial Computing (CISC) at GMU for spatiotemporal computing/software development; b) the Center for Spatial Studies (CSS) at UCSB for spatial thinking and analyses; and c) the Center for Geographic Analysis (CGA) at Harvard for spatiotemporal applications. The Planning Meeting will solicit input from potential Center members and develop projects and priorities for research. There are existing programs at the three campuses with potential overlap, but the mission of the new Center would be to integrate these technologies into a comprehensive spatiotemporal theory and applications. Research results and success stories will be disseminated through publications in relevant spatiotemporal venues as well as among the center member sites for adoption and outreach. The PIs plan to include leading relevant professional organizations to help broadcast the research results and recruit new members through their organizational channels. The PIs also intend to collaborate with complementary I/UCRCs to broaden the impact of the proposed center's research results.