Dr. Katy Börner, Victor H. Yngve Professor of Information Science at Indiana University, received a research award from the National Science Foundation for a unique collaborative project with Purdue University. The Cyberinfrastructure for Network Science Center (CNS), led by Börner, and nanoHUB, led by Purdue University’s Gerhard Klimeck, will conduct joint research to develop an “Engineering Observatory” designed to allow near real-time monitoring of Engineering Research Centers.
Specifically, the project will study and monitor geospatial, temporal, and network trends and patterns in engineering. In order to do so, the observatory will unite publication, grant, and patent data streams, in addition to providing its various stakeholders with visualization and data mining web services. All software will be modular: data access will be provided via application programming interfaces (APIs); analysis and visualization services will run as RESTful services; web-based visualizations will follow a common data standard and use industry-standard client-side frameworks. OSGi/CIShell–based data access, analysis, and visualization algorithms developed by the CNS team under Daniel Halsey’s leadership will become an integral part of the HUBzero platform so that they can be used by current and future HUBzero community instances. Dr. Börner noted, “The NSF leadership (and IU/Purdue engineering leadership) will be able to use the Engineering Observatory as a dashboard to monitor, communicate and steer key developments in engineering.”
This research project represents an important and exciting collaboration between Indiana University and Purdue University. IU’s up-and-coming Intelligent Systems Engineering program, which will start accepting applicants for the Fall 2016 semester, will be the first engineering program offered through Indiana University, providing new avenues for collaboration between these two institutions. Remarking on this new program, Dr. Börner stated, “As IU’s Intelligent Systems Engineering programs mature, I expect to see more bridges between engineering R&D at IU and Purdue University.”
In addition to serving as the Founding Director of CNS, Dr. Börner teaches the Information Visualization MOOC through the School of Informatics and Computing. Her recent work includes Atlas of Knowledge (2015) and Visual Insights: A Practical Guide to Making Sense of Data (2014).