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K-State Today

September 25, 2019

Attend Global Food Systems' Big Data Workshop on Oct. 15

Submitted by Erin Pennington

Big Data Day

The generation, management and use of data in today's complex environment affects all areas of research, whether agriculture, engineering, business or humanities. Global Food Systems' Big Data Workshop on Tuesday, Oct. 15, will bring together an interdisciplinary group of professionals to share what they've learned, discuss impacts and help participants better understand what can and cannot be done with big data.

This event will be highlighted by two keynote presentations from industry partners. 

First, Kumar Navulur, senior director of strategic business development at DigitalGlobe, a Maxar Company, will present on advanced geospatial and space-based technology and their integrated capabilities that connect earth and space.

In the afternoon, Curtis Charles, area solutions architect and data scientist at Microsoft will discuss a partnership with several research teams at K-State that leverages cutting-edge cloud-based technology to directly support sponsored research.

Faculty from the departments of computer science, agronomy, statistics and geography as well as the K-State Libraries, will also share insights into what big data is, and the challenges in managing and analyzing big data.

Bill Hsu, professor of computer science, will cover what kind of things make up big data, such as machine learning, artificial intelligence, social media and more. Pascal Hitzler, professor of computer science, will discuss the critically important topic of how to manage that information.

Later, Nora Bello, associate professor of statistics, and Steve Welch, professor of agronomy, will talk about messy data modeling in agricultural systems, and big data issues in the monitoring and modeling of crops. 

Shawn Hutchinson, professor of geography and director of the Geographic Information Systems Spatial Analysis Laboratory, will discuss geospatial data as used in geology which corresponds to many other areas of research.

Finally, Dan Andresen, professor of computer science and director of the Institute for Computational Research, will cover the main big data handling system on campus, Beocat. He will discuss what it can do and what it can't do — and what some of the future needs for this type of work will be. Carol Sevin, academic services librarian at K-State Libraries will provide information on other resources for big data management on campus. 

The workshop will culminate with an interactive session on tackling grants that require an interdisciplinary approach to big data-based research. Find a full schedule and more information about the workshop.

Faculty, graduate student researchers, and postdocs are encouraged to attend; undergraduates and nonuniversity professionals are welcome as space permits.

This event is a part of the Science Communications Initiative's Science Communication Week and will take place in the K-State Student Union Cottonwood Room. We encourage you to come and go as your time permits and hope to have a full house of interdisciplinary attendees there for the afternoon workshop. Lunch will be provided. Please register for this event by Oct. 8. For questions or additional information about the workshop, please contact Maureen Olewnik at molewnik@k-state.edu