An interdisciplinary team including ICS Professor Philip Johnson has been awarded a 5-year, $3M National Science Foundation grant as part of the NSF Research Traineeship (NRT) program. According to NSF, the NRT program is "designed to encourage the development and implementation of bold, new potentially transformative models for STEM graduate education training. The program is dedicated to effective training of STEM graduate students in high priority interdisciplinary or convergent research areas through comprehensive traineeship models that are innovative, evidence-based, and aligned with changing workforce and research needs."
Principal Investigator, Professor Narayana Santhamam (Electrical and Computer Engineering), along with Co-Principal Investigators, Professor Nori Tarui (Economics and UHERO), Assistant Professor June Zhang (Electrical and Computer Engineering), and Professor Philip Johnson (ICS), were awarded the grant for a project titled "Data in Engineering and Society: Converging Applications, Research, and Training Enhancements for Students." According to the project description, the investigators will "develop an innovative graduate program that brings together engineering, computer science, social science, business and medicine to harness the transformative power of data science. The cross-disciplinary program anticipates training a new generation of 61 graduate students, including 41 funded trainees ... NRT trainees will work in cohort teams on fundamental and applied data science research, applying to: (i) decarbonization of the electricity and transportation sectors in Hawaii, using data from our network of local stakeholders, utilities and the "living lab" that the University campus has become; (ii) healthcare, leveraging possibly the largest current pediatric electrocardiogram dataset to bring about novel diagnosis approaches, as well as through research that models epidemics; (iii) next-generation wireless systems with enhanced communication, novel sensing, resiliency and efficiency. The traineeship model will develop and deploy compact modules across courses to personalize instruction and prepare each trainee with skills tailored to their prior experience and future career goals. Outreach activities to Native Hawaiians, women, and members of the military will leverage and amplify institutional programs to broaden participation in the STEM workforce."
ICS is proud to be participating in this cross-disciplinary endeavor.
By Scott Robertson
