MESSAGE from the DIRECTOR
Published February 2025
Dear SDSC Collaborators, Partners and All Friends:
AThis new year is underway with momentum, and I feel very proud of the national, statewide and local impacts that SDSC continues producing after nearly 40 years. At the same time, within our university community there has been uncertainty, particularly around federal research funding. We are monitoring the various announcements and reports regularly as we continue working steadfastly toward our mission.
On the national scale, we are involved with a National Institutes of Health project called the Cloud Workspace Implementation Center (CWIC). It is a new center led by Texas Advanced Computing Center in collaboration with SDSC, Penn State University and Johns Hopkins University. Shava Smallen is SDSC’s PI on the project. There are more details available in this newsletter under “Around SDSC.”
On both a national and local level, SDSC recently hosted the 6NRP workshop. More than 125 representatives from partner institutions and organizations participated in the National Research Platform (NRP) event, which discussed the future of AI education on NRP and the platform as an accelerant for widespread exploration of future technology. Partners from CENIC AIR and across the CSUs and UCs highlighted pilot efforts underway in California. More details are available under “Around SDSC.”
Researchers from SDSC’s CICORE Division are leading new work to advance understanding of both forest and coastal ecosystems. The NSF-funded OpenForest4D project, led by SDSC PI Viswanath Nandigam, will advance the next-generation of forest mapping and monitoring. You can read more about this project under “News Highlights” in this issue.
In other CICORE-related work, Chief Data Science Officer Ilkay Altintas and Jessica Kendall-Bar, an Eric and Wendy Schmidt AI in Science Postdoctoral Fellow, have helped to develop EcoViz, in partnership with the Center for Coastal Climate Resilience at UC Santa Cruz. EcoViz is an initiative focused on immersive technology and collaboration to address environmental challenges, turning complex climate data into meaningful information to catalyze informed policy action. More information about this project can be found under “News Highlights.”
For news within SDSC, we have merged two centers of excellence in two separate divisions into one new division known as Stack Science, led by Sandeep Chandra. This merger is both a rare and exciting transaction, and one that presents new opportunities for the center. You can read more about Stack Science under “Around SDSC.”
Additionally, for the first time since 2013, we have launched a new website. Many thanks to our website project team—SDSC’s Csilla Csori, Cynthia Dillon and Ben Tolo, as well as Q LTD and Hannon Hill—for their commitment to completing this 15-month-long, challenging project. The new website went live Feb. 3, and if you haven’t visited the site yet, I invite you to take a look. You will find a modern design, simpler navigation and our continued emphasis on serving and supporting our user community.
As we build on this strong, productive start to 2025, I am confident that our collective efforts will continue to drive meaningful impact throughout the year.
Best wishes,
Frank Würthwein
SDSC Director