Big Data Informatics

Today, the ability to generate new discoveries is strongly dependent on the ability to find, organize, integrate and analyze increasingly large, complex and dynamic data.

However, recent studies have indicated that just managing and organizing data may consume the majority of a researcher’s time (50-80 percent) and that scientists infrequently share data unless required to do so.

“The goal of the Center for Discovery Informatics is to transform how knowledge is created, explored and translated into benefits for humankind.”– Carl Kesselman

Further complicating the issue is that by definition, convergent bioscience research spans disciplines – from medicine to engineering – and the data from those disciplines is heterogeneous.

“We need to tie these disparate threads of convergent bioscience research together,” Professor Carl Kesselman, Dean’s Professor of Industrial and Systems Engineering and an Information Sciences Institute Fellow said.

The Center for Discovery Informatics (CDI), led by Dr. Kesselman, is building a shared research infrastructure to be used on a daily basis by collaborating scientists to:

  • Address the significant and challenging issue of how to better capture, organize and share data as part of the discovery process
  • Seek to understand how intertwining technology with the daily practice of science can create opportunities to develop and integrate advanced analysis, data mining, visualization and interaction methods

Spanning engineering, computer science, social sciences and biomedical research, CDI will create a research program that combines elements of:

  • Data-driven science
  • Grid and cloud computing
  • User-centered design
  • Information visualization
  • Data integration
  • Web technologies and service-oriented architecture
  • Big-data analysis and analytics
  • Data management
  • High performance computing

CDI will provide the abstractions, methods, tools and infrastructure that will enable data-driven discovery in complex biological systems.