RAISE: Big Data Tools: From Bioinformatics To Materials Genomics

University Of Connecticut, Storrs CT

Investigators

Abstract

This RAISE project is jointly funded by the Big Data Spokes and BIGDATA Program in the Division of Information and Intelligent Systems in the Directorate for Computing and Information Science and Engineering; the Condensed Matter and Materials Theory Program in the Division of Materials Research and the Office of Multidisciplinary Activities in the Directorate for Mathematical and Physical Sciences; and the Office of Integrative Activities. Large amounts of data get generated in every field of science and engineering. Effective tools are needed to analyze these data and extract useful information. During the past two decades, much progress has been made in the domain of biological data analytics. Clearly, if we can translate this progress to other domains, we can avoid repetition of efforts and also speedup discoveries in the other domains. This project will promote translation of approaches and tools first developed for biological genomics to materials genomics. To maximize scientific impact and use in industry and academia, the software tools to be built will be disseminated to a wide audience. The participation of women and other underrepresented groups will be promoted by leveraging collaborations with the Northeast Big Data Hub and strong, existing institutional programs to encourage diversity at the University of Connecticut. The project will allow many students to gain significant classroom and research experience using the software tools, and they, in turn, will form the core of the highly trained workforce that is essential for the advanced industries critical to our nation's economy. Some of the existing tools developed for biological data may not be directly applicable for materials data. In such cases, novel algorithmic techniques will be developed to suitably modify them. This project will engineer tools for the analysis and discovery of materials to accelerate research in Materials Science. The project will support workshops to bring together scientists from bioinformatics and materials science. The interactions among scientists from these areas are expected to result in crosscutting advances in big data analytics and hence create transformative knowledge. The Northeast Hub as well as the Materials Science Spoke will participate in the project's dissemination effort.