All sessions take place on the Fourth Floor of the Rackham Building, 915 E. Washington St., Ann Arbor, MI.

Day One: Wednesday, November 13

9:30 a.m.

Registration opens
Rackham Lobby

10 – 10:15 a.m.

Opening remarks
Rackham Amphitheatre

10:15 – 11:15 a.m.

Keynote Speaker 1: Christiane Jablonowski | “Pushing the Frontiers of High-Resolution Climate Modeling”
Rackham Amphitheatre
The climate system is inherently complex and governed by the many multi-scale interactions between the atmosphere, oceans, ice, land and the biosphere. Capturing all relevant spatial and temporal scales in the climate system is a computational grand-challenge since they span numerous orders of magnitudes.
This talk gives an overview of state-of-the-art high-resolution climate modeling and, in particular, focuses on emerging variable-resolution and Adaptive Mesh Refinement (AMR) techniques that zoom into regions of interest. They thereby allow an assessment of the many multi-scale interactions at the regional scale between, for example, tropical cyclones and the general circulation of the atmosphere. Simulation results from the Community Atmosphere Model (CAM) will be shown which reflect our close collaborations with the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), Sandia National Laboratories and the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.

Christiane Jablonowski is an Associate Professor of Atmospheric, Oceanic and Space Sciences at the University of Michigan. Her research is highly interdisciplinary and combines atmospheric science, applied mathematics, computational science and high-performance computing. In particular, her research suggests new pathways how to bridge the wide range of spatial scales between local, regional and global phenomena in climate models without the prohibitive computational costs of global high-resolution simulations. She thereby advances variable-resolution and Adaptive Mesh Refinement (AMR) techniques for future-generation weather and climate models that are built upon modern computational meshes. Variable-resolution meshes enable climate modelers to focus the computational resources on features or regions of interest, and thereby allow an assessment of the many multi-scale interactions between, for example, tropical cyclones and the general circulation of the atmosphere.
Professor Jablonowski organizes international dynamical core model intercomparison projects (DCMIP) and summer schools on climate modeling, teaches tutorials on parallel computing at the conference SuperComputing, develops cyber-infrastructure tools for the climate sciences, and has co-edited and co-authored a book on numerical methods for global atmospheric models. She is a member of the steering committee of the Michigan Institute for Computational Discovery and Engineering (MICDE) and executive board member of the Earth System Modeling Framework (ESMF). Professor Jablonowski has received several awards, including the DoE Early Career Award and Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE) from President Obama in 2011.

11:30 a.m. – noon

Concurrent Sessions 1 

Scaling a Code in the Human Dimension, Matthew Turk, Columbia University
West Conference Room
As scientists’ needs for computational techniques and tools grow, they cease to be supportable by software developed in isolation. In many cases, these needs are being met by communities of practice, where software is developed by domain scientists to reach pragmatic goals and satisfy distinct and enumerable scientific goals. We describe challenges encountered by communities of scientist developers, as well present techniques that have been successful in growing and engaging communities of practice, specifically in the yt and Enzo communities of computational astrophysics.#1

Matthew Turk is an NSF Postdoctoral Fellow in the Cyberinfrastructure for Transformational Computational Science Program at Columbia University. He is the original author of yt (http://yt-project.org/ ), an analysis and visualization toolkit for astrophysical simulations, and a core developer of Enzo (http://enzo-project.org/ ), a platform for conducting massively parallel astrophysical simulations.  Prior to Columbia, Matthew received his PhD from Stanford University and was subsequently a postdoctoral researcher at UC San Diego. Matthew has worked to study the formation of the first stars and galaxies in the Universe, with an emphasis on developing efficient computational methods for following the complex chemical processes that govern the kinetic and thermal state of primordial gas. Throughout his career, Matthew has worked to foster and develop open source, community-driven approaches to computational tools and technologies for scientific inquiry.

Resources and Services Throughout the Data Lifecycle: Data Management Planning, Jacob Glenn, Natsuko Nicholls, and Fe Sferdean, MLibraries
Rackham Amphitheatre
Data management is an integral part of research. Before starting a new study, researchers should make explicit plans for managing their data. A panel of library research staff will give an update on data management and sharing requirements and discuss what we’ve learned from an analysis of data management plans from accepted NSF proposals, connecting our findings to practical advice. We’ll explore some ways that the University Library and other campus units can help researchers with data management planning and implementation throughout the research lifecycle, including data creation, acquisition/licensing of existing datasets, and data analysis.

Jacob Glenn is a science librarian at the University of Michigan’s Shapiro Science Library, where he serves as liaison to the departments of Physics and Astronomy. Jake received his MSI from the University of Michigan School of information in 2007.  Since then Jake has worked on a variety of data-related projects including creating a data management template used by the University of Michigan College of Engineering.

Natsuko Hayashi Nicholls is a CLIR/DLF Data Curation Fellow, Associate Librarian, and a full-time researcher affiliated with the Clark Library for Maps, Government Information and Data Services. Since the summer of 2012, Natsuko has been involved in developing and implementing library data services. Natsuko has a Master’s Degree in Law and Politics from the University of Tokyo and a Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of Michigan. She has published both in Japanese and English on a variety of topics to include; Japanese Foreign policy, International Relations, Gender Equality and Women’s Rights in Post-conflict Areas, and most recently on Scholarly Communication, Digital Publishing, and Affordability and Usability of Electronic Textbooks.

Fe C. Sferdean is a CLIR/DLF Data Curation Fellow at the Clark Library working as a full-time researcher since the summer of 2012. She has been working with a data team in developing strategies towards implementing the Library’s data service for the University of Michigan’s research community.  Fe has a Ph.D. in Chemistry from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. She has presented and published work on the biochemistry of bacterial behavior.

Noon – 1 p.m

Networking Lunch
Assembly Hall, East Conference Rooms

1:15 – 1:45 p.m.

Concurrent Sessions 2

Jared Lyle directs the Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research’s (ICPSR) Curation Services Unit, which is responsible for Metadata, the Bibliography of Data-Related Literature, and Digital Preservation. His work includes developing and maintaining a comprehensive approach to data management and digital preservation policy at ICPSR. Jared also helps lead a workshop in the ICPSR Summer Program titled “Curating and Managing Research Data for Re-Use.”

Visualization Resources at U-M, Part I: Resources to conceptualize, analyze and present your research in more compelling ways, Jen Green, MLibraries, and Eric Maslowski, MLibraries and UM3D Lab.
Rackham Amphitheatre
Opportunities exist here to acquire and generate vast quantities of data, and new types of data, from disparate domains that can be further analyzed and recombined for even richer discovery. For data to support productive research it needs to be clearly understood and effectively used. Innovative research also needs to explore solutions beyond data consumption and analysis to include novel teaching pedagogies, digital media creation and presentation, making objects, and defining spaces where it all comes together. This session will provide both a survey of consulting resources and tools you may not be aware of on campus, explore how various resources can benefit you at any point in your project, and give you a chance to tell us about your needs for support.

Jen Green is the Director of Research Data Services, a network of services for data throughout the research lifecycle offered by the library and connected to other campus resources.  She is also Head of Science, Engineering, and the Clark Library for Maps, Government Information and Data Services, coordinating strategic directions and staffing, and the interdisciplinary research that all three units support. A data librarian by trade, she previously served the University of Michigan community by providing assistance with spatial data, numeric data, and statistics through a appointments, email reference, the two SAND labs, and courses and workshops on a variety of topics including locating demographic data and Introduction to Geographic Information Systems.

Eric Maslowski is manager and technical creative consultant of the UM3D Lab, a service of the DMC and U-M Library that encourages the creative spirit through open access to the tools, expertise, and collaborative opportunities needed to support innovative uses of technology in research and education. Eric previously served as development lead on numerous federally and internally funded projects with a focus on creating simulations, tools, and artistic content for the Lab’s numerous research projects and display devices (CAVE, Tiled Displays, etc.). His primary areas of focus involved the development of cross-platform graphical rendering engines for visualizing various data types, creating detailed artistic assets and user experiences, and providing training to those interested in digital content creation at the University of Michigan and abroad. He now serves as Lab Manager of the UM3D Lab providing access to high-end technologies and professional expertise in the general areas of 3D simulation, digital fabrication, education, visualization, motion capture, modeling, animation, and application development.

2 – 3 p.m.

Keynote Speaker 2: Abby Smith Rumsey | “The History of the Future: What Happens When the World Fails”
Rackham Amphitheatre
Will the history of the future be rich with meaningful and readily accessible resources about the world, about us, and about the deep past, the resources humans invariably turn to when forced by human failures and natural catastrophes to reimagine our future and rebuild our lives? Or will we leave our heirs a blank slate? Ensuring access to evidence from the past is the greatest challenge to the digital knowledge infrastructure because making the case for investing in long-term benefits to society is challenging under the best of circumstances. Rumsey will discuss the quality and scale of the infrastructure needed to carry humanity’s knowledge into the future, and how to scale the human networks that will assume responsibility for the history of the future.

Abby Smith Rumsey is a historian with special interest in the creation, preservation, and use of the cultural record in a variety of media; the impact of digital information technologies on cultural heritage institutions; and the evolving role of information as a public good. She has served as director of the Scholarly Communication Institute at the University of Virginia; worked with the Library of Congress’s National Digital Information Infrastructure and Preservation Program (NDIIPP) in development of its national strategy to identify, collect, and preserve digital content of long-term value; and was an advisor to the ACLS Commission on the Cyberinfrastructure for the Humanities and Social Sciences. She served as a member of the Blue Ribbon Task Force on Sustainable Digital Preservation and Access and was senior writer and editor for the task force’s final report. Previously she worked as director of programs at the Council on Library and Information Resources in Washington, DC; and at the Library of Congress managing programs relating to preservation of and access to cultural heritage collections. She holds a doctoral degree in Russian history from Harvard University and has taught at Harvard and Johns Hopkins Universities. She has published widely on cultural heritage, preservation, and scholarship in the digital age. Her book  When is a Watch Not a Watch? The Art and Science of Memory in the Digital Age is forthcoming (Bloomsbury Press 2014).

3 – 5 p.m.

Poster Session and Information Fair
Assembly Hall
This event showcases research at U-M enabled by advanced research computing. The poster session will be judged by faculty, and attendees can vote for the “People’s Choice” award. The information fair includes booths about computational and information resources available at U-M and beyond. Food will be served.

Day Two: Thursday, November 14

9:30 a.m.

Registration opens
Assembly Hall

10 a.m.

Welcome from Eric Michielssen, Associate Vice President for Advanced Research Computing, and announcement of poster session winners.
Rackham Amphitheatre

10:15 – 11:15 am

Keynote Speaker 3: James Hilton | “The Evolving Role of Libraries in Supporting the Lifecycle of Research Data”
Rackham Amphitheatre
The digital revolution is fueling unprecedented growth in all areas of research and expression. It enables ama­teurs to make important contributions to science. It changes the ways artists make and distribute their works. It allows any­one with talent and an Internet connec­tion to publish. It is transformative. But the digital revolution also pre­sents a problem. Digital expressions, despite both their ubiquity and their centrality to modern life, whether they are words, data, or images, are inher­ently fragile. Left alone, they experience entropy and rapidly degrade. Complicating things further, as new technolo­gies come along, digital records must be migrated to new hardware and software platforms; if not, the ability to “read” them is lost. Bottom line, without sustained care and attention, the digital works that delight and inform our lives will quickly decay into so much digital dust. In this presentation, Hilton will discuss some of the initiatives that come out of the library community to address these challenges and discuss the role of the library in supporting research data more broadly.

James Hilton is the Dean of Libraries and University Librarian at the University of Michigan.  He is also the Vice Provost for Digital Educational Initiatives, responsible for developing strategies and policies around educational technology and other cross-campus digital education initiatives.
Prior to his current appointment, Dr. Hilton served as Vice President and Chief Information Officer at the University of Virginia from 2006 until 2013.  From 2001 to 2006 he was the Associate Provost for Academic Information and Instructional Technology Affairs at the University of Michigan, and served as the Interim University Librarian for one year in 2005.  He was a member of the faculty at the University of Michigan in the Psychology Department where he served as the Chair of Undergraduate Studies between 1991 and 2000.  He is a three-time recipient of the LS&A Excellence in Education award, an Arthur F. Thurnau Professor, and recipient of the Class of 1923 Memorial Teaching Award.  He has published extensively in the areas of information technology policy, person perception, stereotypes, and the psychology of suspicion.
Dr. Hilton received a B.A. in Psychology from the University of Texas at Austin in 1981, and a Ph.D. in Social Psychology from Princeton University in 1985.

11:30 a.m. – noon

Concurrent Sessions 3

Resources and Services Throughout the Data Lifecycle: Data Publication, Jen Green and Katherine Akers, MLibraries
West Conference Room
Driven by a culture of greater openness as well as new federal mandates, more researchers are choosing to publicly share their research data. We’ll discuss a variety of options for transforming your datasets into scholarly products that can be published, cited, and tracked, thereby increasing your research productivity and impact.

Jen Green is the Director of Research Data Services, a network of services for data throughout the research lifecycle offered by the library and connected to other campus resources.  She is also Head of Science, Engineering, and the Clark Library for Maps, Government Information and Data Services, coordinating strategic directions and staffing, and the interdisciplinary research that all three units support. A data librarian by trade, she previously served the University of Michigan community by providing assistance with spatial data, numeric data, and statistics through a appointments, email reference, the two SAND labs, and courses and workshops on a variety of topics including locating demographic data and Introduction to Geographic Information Systems.

Katherine Akers, an eScience Librarian and CLIR Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Michigan Libraries, is helping plan and implement services and infrastructure to support the management of research data on campus. Before coming to the library, Katherine conducted research on the connections between the brain and behavior at the University of New Mexico and the Hospital for Sick CHildren in Toronto. Her current aim is to use her research background to help improve how scientific information is created and disseminated within the academic community.

Visualization Resources at U-M, Part II: A guide to specific consulting services, software, training and presentation technologies to make your research team productive and effective, Justin Joque, MLibraries; Ted Hall, UM3D Lab; and Marci Brandenburg, U-M Taubman Health Sciences Library.
Rackham Amphitheatre
Too many research projects expend valuable resources (time and people) discovering the tools and best practices to employ in analyzing and interpreting complex data for visual presentation. In many cases the software, compute environments, workbench and workflow tools, best practices, and expert advice already exist at U-M to help you. This session will describe where existing experts and resources exist that can help your research team get past the start-up and on to richer discovery in less time. We’d also like to hear what other practical needs you have.

Ted Hall is an Advanced Visualization Specialist in the University of Michigan 3D Lab, where he develops software for advanced visualization systems — including the MIDEN, StereoWall, 3DTV, head-mounted displays, and various input devices — and provides consultation and advice to users. Prior to joining the 3D Lab in 2009, Ted worked for 10 years as a post-doctoral fellow (initially), research officer and software developer in the Chinese University of Hong Kong Department of Architecture, and 14 years as a systems research programmer in the UM Architecture and Planning Research Laboratory.  Ted graduated from the UM College of Architecture and Urban Planning, with a B.S. in 1979, an M.Arch. in 1981, and an Arch.D. in 1994.  His career metamorphosis began as an undergraduate architecture student, developing software for computer graphics, computer-aided architectural design, geometric modeling, building information modeling and visualization.

Justin Joque is a Spatial and Numeric Data Librarian at the University of Michigan. As a data librarian, he works with faculty, researchers and students to assist in locating, organizing, manipulating and analyzing data across disciplines. His work focuses on Geographic Information Systems, data visualization and data management/organization. He teaches workshops on data-related topics, including data management and planning in diverse fields, from research to non-profit organizations. He is also a PhD candidate in Communications at the European Graduate School in Switzerland where his dissertation work is focusing on cyberwarfare and its relation to the way we understand information technology. Justin holds an M.S.I. in Information Analysis and Retrieval from the University of Michigan and a B.A. in History, also from the University of Michigan.

Marci Brandenburg, MS, MSI, is the Bionformationist at the University of Michigan’s Taubman Health Sciences Library.  She works closely with the Department of Computational Medicine & Bioinformatics and the Bioinformatics Core, and supports other bioinformatics research on campus.  In addition to offering instruction on a variety of visualization tools, she helps with tool documentation and coordinates a weekly Tools and Technology seminar.  Before coming to the University of Michigan in November 2010, she was the Biosciences Informationist at the National Cancer Institute-Frederick.  She received her MS in biology from Ohio University and her MSI from the University of Michigan, and has worked for the National Wildlife Federation, the USDA Wildlife Services, and as a lab technician at the University of Michigan’s Medical School.

Noon – 1 p.m.

Networking lunch
Assembly Hall, East Conference Room

1:15 – 1:45 p.m.

Concurrent Sessions 4 

1:45 – 2 p.m.

Break: Mingling + light snacks and beverages
Assembly Hall

2 – 3 p.m.

Keynote Speaker 4: Lada Adamic | “Big Fun with Big Data”
Rackham Amphitheatre
Social networks drive and are driven by information sharing. Because online communication is electronically mediated, much can be learned about humans’ social behavior by studying large data in aggregate. In this talk, Adamic will describe several studies performed by Facebook’s Data Science Team experimenting with just such data. These range from fun data excursions to find the geographic distribution of American football fans, to understanding how political messages, e.g., turning out the vote or supporting marriage equality, can spread via social ties. Not all social ties play an equal role in propagating information, however. One experiment found strong ties to be individually more influential, but the much more numerous weak ties to collectively wield more influence and provide more diverse information exposure on Facebook.
The ability of weak ties to transmit information occasionally leads to the formation of large cascades involving hundreds of thousands of individuals actively sharing the information, exposing millions of others. These cascades not only reveal the importance of the underlying network structure and demographics, but also depend on the content that is being propagated. For example, whether information is true or false affects how readily it is transmitted and removed. What’s more, information is frequently altered as it is passed on, somewhat analogously to a game of telephone. This is just a sampling of the fun and intriguing findings which can be unearthed in gobs of data.

Lada Adamic is a data scientist at Facebook and an associate professor in the School of Information and the Center for the Study of Complex Systems at the University of Michigan. Her research interests center on information dynamics in networks: how information diffuses, how it can be found, and how it influences the evolution of a network’s structure. Her projects have included identifying expertise in online question and answer forums, studying the dynamics of viral marketing, and characterizing the structural and communication patterns in online social media. She has received an NSF CAREER award, a University of Michigan Henry Russell award, the 2012 Lagrange Prize in Complex Systems and best paper awards from Hypertext’08, ICWSM’10 and ’11, Web Intelligence’11 and ICIS’11. She is currently working at Facebook while on leave from the University.

3:15 – 3:45 p.m.

Concurrent Sessions 5 

XSEDE Greater Scale, No Budget Required, Brock Palen, College of Engineering
West Conference Room
The Extreme Science and Engineering Discovery Environment (XSEDE) is a set of High Performance Computing Resources (HPC). Located around the country XSEDE is the largest open science network available to researchers for no cost. Learn about gaining access to these top 10 scale resources, and what local support is available to quickly transition, or scale your research computing problems to XSEDE.