Center for Data and Applied Computing

 

To: Faculty and Academic Appointees

From: Robert J. Zimmer, President, and Daniel Diermeier, Provost

Subject: Center for Data and Applied Computing

Date: April 6, 2018

 

Today, we are pleased to announce the launch of the Center for Data and Applied Computing (CDAC), a research center for developing new methods in computation and data analytics and applying them to ambitious projects across the full spectrum of science and scholarship.

 

Expanding streams of data and advanced methods such as machine learning, simulation, and artificial intelligence are rapidly changing society and scholarship in practically every field. This new Center will support and encourage transformative research using these tools, furthering the University’s commitment to applied science.

 

The new Center will partner with the Department of Computer Science and will be co-located in the renovated John Crerar Library, reopening this fall. CDAC activities will be guided by a steering committee made up of faculty members from across campus and led by a faculty director that reports to the Office of the Provost. Appointments to these roles will be announced later this year.

 

The Center will also provide opportunities for researchers from UChicago-affiliated laboratories such as Argonne National Laboratory, Fermilab, and the Marine Biological Laboratory to participate in data science and computing collaborations with UChicago faculty.

 

The Center builds upon the successes of the Computation Institute (CI), a joint initiative of UChicago and Argonne National Laboratory established in 1999. For the past 19 years, the CI has fostered collaborative and applied computational research on both campuses, providing a home for hundreds of researchers and dozens of forward-looking research centers and projects. The CI will close later this year, leaving behind a legacy of researchers who built and managed technologies that enable global sharing of scientific data, applied high-performance computing to studies of the universe, genetics and climate change, and developed novel data-driven tools for studying cities, public policy and the humanities.

 

Data and computing are now essential elements for almost all forms of science and scholarship. The Center for Data and Applied Computing ensures that UChicago remains a pioneer in the broadening applications of data science and computing approaches. The new Center will inspire and support new research partnerships that utilize these powerful tools to improve and better understand our world.