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

Developing Standards for Mobile Health

Participant recap of the mHealth Conference in May 2017. The Mobile Health (mHealth) conference sponsored by the South Big Data Innovation Hub and the National Consortium for Data Science. Alex Cheng was a third-year graduate student in biomedical informatics at Vanderbilt University. He attended the South Big Data Hub/NCDS mHealth conference in May with travel support from the Hub.

Hackathon part of effort to make Orlando the ‘Smartest City’

On August 26 and 27, programmers and software engineers convened in Orlando to push the boundaries of creativity, innovation, reality, and technology to build solutions and concepts that have the potential to make a difference in the Orlando community. Called the Orlando Smart Cities Hackathon, the event aimed to support the city of Orlando in its efforts to become a smart city and also to demonstrate the city’s capabilities as it works to earn the title of “The Smartest City.” Orlando received two smart cities grant awards and is pursuing a variety of additional funding opportunities for smart cities initiatives that would help to enhance transportation citywide and beyond. In these pursuits, the city continues to move forward with building a data-driven infrastructure that will support safer, cleaner, and more efficient travel and an improved quality of life.

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 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).

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.

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.