Faculty Research and Development | South Big Data Innovation Hub

FACULTY, RESEARCH, & DEVELOPMENT OVERVIEW

The South Hub has a strong focus on impact for faculty and on the advancement of research and development across the region. The South Hub provides direct support to large and small-scale applied projects, academia-industry collaborations, and seed grant proposals.

IMPACT

$7+ Million in faculty lead projects
$135,000+ in early career faculty fellowships for travel and salary support to engage with industry partners
Over $ 100,000 in faculty training in data science for faculty at primarily teaching institutions, minority-led or -serving institutions, community colleges, and four-year liberal arts colleges

VIEW MORE ABOUT OUR WORK WITH FACULTY, RESEARCH, & DEVELOPMENT

DEDICATE Training Workshop 2024

The DEDICATE Program will build institutional capacity as well as individual faculty capacity in teaching data science at not only historically underserved institutions (HBCUs and HSIs) but also within the interdisciplinary areas (Social Impact Areas) of 1. Criminal Justice 2. Geosciences and Health Disparities 3. Food and Water Systems.

Big data and public health: New scenes and a new state of mind

Participant recap of the 2017 International Conference on Social Computing, Behavioral-Cultural Modeling, & Prediction and Behavior Representation in Modeling and Simulation (SBP-BRiMS 2017) was held in Washington, DC, in July, and prominent fields applying social computing techniques include public health and healthcare. Participant is Kyong Shin, PhD, a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Tennessee Health Science Center – Oak Ridge National Lab (UTHSC-ORNL), Center for Biomedical Informatics, Department of Pediatrics (affiliated with Le Bonheur Children's Hospital). She attended the 2017 International Conference on Social Computing, Behavioral-Cultural Modeling, & Prediction and Behavior Representation in Modeling and Simulation (SBP-BRiMS) with support from the South Big Data Hub.

The HBCU Data Science Consortium

This project was an awardee of the 2020 South Big Data Hub SEEDS Program - Southern Engagement and Enrichment in Data Science. It was the single large award funded at $100K. The PIs seek to build a consortium that provides an accessible and beneficial platform within the HBCU community.

Data4Kids: Virtually Teaching Kids about Data Science

This project was an awardee of the 2020 South Big Data Hub SEEDS Program - Southern Engagement and Enrichment in Data Science. It is one of two awards funded in the Seed Grant's mid-range category of >$50,000. The PIs seek to launch a website that contains guides, videos, and other content to assist educators and instructors on teaching data science to their students.

The North Carolina Data Science Panel Series

This project was an awardee of the 2020 South Big Data Hub SEEDS Program- Southern Engagement and Enrichment in Data Science. It is one of three awards funded in the Seed Grant's small-range category of <$10,000. The PIs seek to showcase the different educational pathways that high school students can take to become a data scientist.

The Visualization and Data Reuse Challenge - Digital Rocks Portal

This project was an awardee of the 2020 South Big Data Hub SEEDS Program- Southern Engagement and Enrichment in Data Science. It is one of three awards funded in the Seed Grant's small-range category of <$10,000. The PIs seek to promote visualization and reuse of 3D images of porous materials that are stored in the open data repository Digital Rocks Portal (DRP).

2020 PEPI-G Fellows Selected

The Program to Empower Partnerships with Industry and Government (PEPI-G) supports faculty members, research scientists, postdocs, and graduate and undergraduate students (rising juniors and seniors as of 2020) from the 16 states that comprise the South Big Data Regional Innovation Hub (South BD Hub).

The S.E.E.D.S Grant Program: Southern Engagement and Enrichment in Data Science

South Hub SEEDS (Southern Engagement and Enrichment in Data Science) projects are designed to give money to PI’s to establish communities of practice, working groups, or provide a connection point between two or more communities, sectors, or solution providers to grow and scale opportunities for the Southern region.

Using a Virtual Ecological Research Assistant (VERA) to explain the impact of social distancing

COVID-19 continues to spread across the country and around the world. The current strategy for managing the spread of COVID-19 is social distancing, and a new white paper from Georgia Tech applies the use of an interactive Artificial Intelligence (AI) tool to conceptualize the impact of social distancing on the spread of COVID-19.

The Keeping Data Science Broad Program

The series garnered community input into pathways for keeping data science as a discipline broadly inclusive. We gathered input from data science programs in any region across the nation, either traditional or alternative, and from a range of institution types including minority-serving institutions, community colleges, liberal arts colleges, tribal colleges, universities, and industry partners. The series consists of webinars, workshops, and programs exploring the future of data science education and workforce at institutions of higher learning that are primarily teaching-focused.