On November 15, seven University of Washington faculty members from Biology, Bioengineering, and Computer Science & Engineering were privileged to share a 2-hour breakfast in Seattle with DARPA Director Regina Dugan, Deputy Director Ken Gabriel, IIO Office Director Dan Kaufman, IIO Program Manager Ben Cutler, and U.S. Marines Operational Liaison Col. Robert Durkin. One message that came through loud and clear:  DARPA leadership is intently focused on understanding how well DARPA is working in the eyes of the academic research community.  There were many probing questions exploring the details of interactions and relationships. Talk to your DARPA Program Manager was emphasized repeatedly.  For example, in order to allow headquarters staff […]

Computing in Science and Engineering is out with a special issue for November/December 2011 focused on Big Data — and the significant research opportunities emerging from a growing wealth of scientific data. As guest editors Francis Alexander (Los Alamos National Laboratory), Adolfy Hoisie (Pacific Northwest National Laboratory), and Alexander Szalay (Johns Hopkins University) write in their introduction: With the exponential growth in data acquisition and generation — whether by next-generation telescopes, high-throughput experiments, petascale scientific computing, or high-resolution sensors — it’s an extremely exciting time for scientific discovery. As a result of these technological advances, the next decade will see even more significant impacts in fields such as medicine, astronomy and […]