News
2023
The Polar Geospatial Center at the University of Minnesota provides access to historical and new digital elevation models of polar regions
The National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, National Reconnaissance Office and National Science Foundation have finalized an agreement to provide continued public access to historical and new digital elevation models created using commercial imagery collected over the Arctic and Antarctic. The agreement also allows NGA to share the imagery with NSF-funded university partners in order to update NSF’s ArcticDEM and Reference Elevation Model of Antarctica projects for the full 10-year duration of the contract, currently scheduled to end in 2032. The DEMs will also be publicly available on NGA’s through ESRI’s ArcGIS platform and via NSF’s at the University of Minnesota, enabling a wide variety of GIS, remote sensing, climate and mapping research use cases across the polar science community. NGS
DSI Affiliate Lucy Fortson serving as guest editor of upcoming special issue on AI and the Future of Citizen Science in the journal Citizen Science: Theory and Practice
The application of artificial intelligence (AI) technologies, including Machine Learning, computer vision, and Natural Language Processing, in citizen science is growing rapidly. This special collection will explore how AI technologies and citizen science have been combined in different domains and in different regions of the world, lessons learned, and a glimpse at what the future holds. For further information on the call for abstracts please see: https://citizenscience.org/2023/07/18/call-for-abstracts-ai-and-the-future-of-citizen-science/
Assistant Professor Nadja Strobbe gets grant to study machine learning in high energy physics
Nadja Strobbe, Assistant Professor in the School of Physics and Astronomy, has received $232,000 of a $4.3 million grant from the Department of Energy to improve machine learning in high energy physics. Strobbe’s research will use data from the Large Hadron Collider at CERN in Switzerland, specifically studies carried out by the Compact Muon Solenoid (CMS) Collaboration of which Strobbe is a member. UMN SPA, UMN CSE
CSE DSI associate director Shashi Shekhar will direct a new AI Institute led by the University of Minnesota
Researchers at AI-CLIMATE (Climate-Land Interactions, Mitigation, Adaptation, Tradeoffs and Economy) aim to leverage artificial intelligence (AI) to create more climate-smart practices that will absorb and store carbon while simultaneously boosting the economy in the agriculture and forestry industries. UMN CS&E, UMN News, NSF Announcement
SIAM Data Mining Conference held in Minneapolis April 27-29, 2023
DSI Highlight
The SIAM International Conference on Data Mining was held in Minneapolis on April 27-29, 2023. Several of our affiliated faculty were deeply involved in planning for the conference: DSI Associate Director Shashi Shekhar as General Co-chair, Yao-Yi Chiang as Program Co-chair, Ju Sun as Local Chair, and Jaideep Srivistava and Panel Chair. Others involved in the Steering Committee and Program Committees include DSI Director Vipin Kumar, George Karypis, and Daniel Boley.
DSI sponsored the Thursday evening reception as well as a lunch on Friday for DSI affiliated faculty and SIAM President Sven Leyffer. In addition, students of DSI affiliated faculty did very well:
Best Doctoral Forum Poster Award (Runner-Up): Towards Explainable Physics-Guided Machine Learning; Somya Sharma (Vipin Kumar’s lab)
Best Poster Award
1st place: Generating Meaningful Representations from Multimodal Spatial Data Describing Human-Environmental Interactions; Jina Kim (Yao-Yi Chiang’s lab)
2nd place: Geospatial Data Understanding: A Peek into Historical Maps and Contemporary Structured Databases; Zekun Li (Yao-Yi Chiang’s lab)
3rd place: Large Scale Data Extraction from Population Sampling of Dispersed Waterborne Photovoltaic Microparticles; Yijun Lin, Tianqi Luo, Joseph Talghader, Yao-Yi Chiang, Daniel Bond (CS&E, ECE, Microbiology, U of MN)
Best Blue Sky Paper Award (Runner-Up): Data Mining Challenges and Opportunities to Achieve Net Zero Carbon Emissions: Focus on Electrified Vehicles; Mingzhou Yang, Bharat Jayaprakash, Matthew Eagon, Hyeonjung (Tari) Jung, William F. Northrop, & Shashi Shekhar
CSE DSI affiliate Stevie Chancellor earns Amazon grant for machine learning and mental health project
Department of Computer Science & Engineering assistant professor Stevie Chancellor is the recipient of the Amazon Research Awards for spring/summer 2022 for her project titled, “Collaborative and socially translucent task instructions for emotionally heavy and subjective annotation tasks.” Her group will use this grant to improve machine learning techniques relating to mental health data. The team is dedicated to creating collaborative labeling interfaces for machine learning modeling while considering the subjectivity of distressing content. UMN CS&E
Joe Konstan, Associate Dean for Research in the College of Science & Engineering and a DSI affiliate, leads $2M grant
Joe Konstan, a Distinguished McKnight University Professor in the University of Minnesota Department of Computer Science & Engineering, will lead a $2 million NSF project aimed at developing a system to help researchers better study AI-powered news recommender systems. The University of Minnesota-led project aims to develop a shared news recommender system that will enable researchers nationwide to carry out live one-time and longitudinal experiences on users of AI systems that personalize the news-reading experience. UMN CSE, NSF Award Abstract 2232551
DSI affiliate Stevie Chancellor and grad student Ashlee Milton study TikTok's effects on mental health
The study is designed to pinpoint the true effects the one-of-a-kind social media platform has on its viewers. While many enjoy TikTok’s ability to produce fun, creative content, others are skeptical of its harmful effects on the viewers’ mental health. “TikTok is misunderstood by people who don't use the platform,” Chancellor said. “Our research shows that TikTok helps people find community and mental health information. But, people should also be mindful of its algorithm, how it works, and when the system is providing them things that are harmful to their wellbeing.” UMN CS&E, paper pdf
CSE DSI director Vipin Kumar part of $1.4 million University of Minnesota Medical School grant
The University of Minnesota Medical School has received a $1.4 million research grant for their work with artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning. Among this team of researchers is Department of Computer Science & Engineering’s Vipin Kumar, whose work will help improve patient safety with machine learning. Kumar is also also director of the Data Science Initiative in the College of Science & Engineering. The team is introducing ENTRUST AI, “ENsuring the TRUSTworthiness of AI/ML Models to Optimize Continual Patient Safety.” UMN Medical School
New master's degree in data science
The University of Minnesota Twin Cities College of Science and Engineering has announced that it will offer a new, first-of-its-kind master’s degree in data science for chemical engineering and materials science that can be completed in one academic year. UMN CSE
CSE DSI affiliates part of Institute Grant on Spatial Data Science for Arctic and Antarctic Regions
DSI Associate Director Shashi Shekhar and affiliate Mohamed Mokbel are members of a team awarded a $13 million dollar grant for improving understanding of polar regions. The award was granted last year by the National Science Foundation to establish the HDR Institute: HARP - Harnessing Data and Model Revolution in the Polar Regions, an institute centered around study of Arctic and Antarctic regions using data science, physical models and cyberinfrastructure. The goal is to inform policy decisions regarding impending impacts of changes in polar regions ranging from cold outbreaks to sea-level rise. UMN CS&E
2022
CSE DSI affiliate Dan Knights named as one of most "Highly Cited Researchers" in the world
Dan Knights, a computational biologist with joint appointments in the College of Science and Engineering and the College of Biological Sciences and a CSE DSI affiliate, was named in the biology and biochemistry most-cited list. His research uses data mining and machine learning to aggregate and mine multiple sources of microbial and human genomic data for patterns linking to environmental conditions and human disease. UMN CSE
Evaluation of Federated Learning Variations for COVID-19 diagnosis
Federated learning (FL) allows multiple distributed data holders to collaboratively learn a shared model without data sharing. The real-world federation is a collaboration between 4 universities, including the University of Minnesota and DSI affiliate Ju Sun. Oct 11: JAMIA
CSE DSI affiliate Jeff Calder and team awarded $1.2M NSF grant for deep learning research
The National Science Foundation (NSF) has awarded a three-year $1.2 million grant for the project "Analytical Foundations for Deep Learning and Inference over Graphs" to a team of collaborating researchers at the University of Minnesota, including School of Mathematics Professor Jeff Calder. The grant is through the NSF Mathematical and Scientific Foundations of Deep Learning and Related Areas (MoDL+) program. Sept 11: UMN CSE
University of Minnesota awarded nearly $22M to lead two Energy Frontier Research Centers
The Center for Interacting Geo-Processes in Mineral Carbon Storage will bring together engineers and scientists, including DSI Affiliate Renee Frontiera, from five internationally renowned organizations to study and improve the process of carbon mineralization. Sept. 7: UMN
Is a master’s degree in data science worth it?
While profiling data science education, the University of Minnesota ranks third for data science education by Fortune. The UMN's data science program is profiled and DSI-affiliate Dan Boley is quoted. Aug. 24: Fortune
How is manure changing over time? Trends in Midwest manure sample data
The University of Minnesota, with the help of the Minnesota Supercomputing Institute, is creating a manure nutrient database called ManureDB to help update these values. Aug. 3: Drovers; Aug. 8: The Farmer; Aug. 9: Crop Producer
Injustice in the Justice System: AI — Justice Education Project and Encode Justice Event
To combat and raise awareness about the biases in AI used in the criminal justice system, Justice Education Project (JEP) and Encode Justice (EJ) have partnered to organize a panel discussion with a workshop about algorithmic justice in law enforcement. Logan Stapleton, 3rd-year Computer Science PhD candidate in GroupLens (a DSI affiliated research group) will speak at the event. July 27: Medium
Data Scientists use new techniques to identify lakes and reservoirs around the world
A team of researchers led by UMN data scientists has published a first-of-its-kind comprehensive global dataset of lakes and reservoirs. UMN professor in computer science and engineering and senior author of the study, Vipin Kumar, is quoted. This work is also highlighted in an NSF News story. July 19: Agadir-group; Aljazeera; Always First; Asian News International; Ask by Geeks; Bioengineer; Bunte Zeitung (German); Daily Prabhat; Devdiscourse; Escapefromwithin; EurekAlert!; Feinbergflipside; Getaboutcolumbia; Knowledia; LatestLY; Mantras TV; News Explorer; Newswise; Phys.org; The Print; Renegadenate; Samachar Central; Scienmag Science Magazine; Sixth News; Tech Codex; Tech and Science Post; WhatsNew2Day; Web India 123; Wings Environmental; July 20: Bizemag; Escapefromwithin; Feinbergflipside; Glow Articles; Harlem61; New Kerala; Ousids.com; Renegadenate; Rentsobe; Smart Water Magazine; UMN Twin Cities; Venezuela2007; Water Online; July 21: Minnesota Ag Connection; July 22: Century21Amiable; July 23: Apeksha Sandesh; July 25: Water Journal (Korean); Aug 3: NSF
CS&E Ph.D. Graduate Wins 2022 Graduate School's Best Dissertation Award
Computer Science Ph.D. graduate Xiaowei Jia, an associate with DSI Director Vipin Kumar, won the 2022 University of Minnesota Graduate School's Best Dissertation Award in the “Physical Sciences and Engineering” category. July 7: UMN CS&E
12 Risk Factors Linked to Dementia Could Be Modified, Reduce US Cases by 400,000
A team at the Minnesota Population Center sought to calculate population attributable fraction (PAF) of dementia linked to 12 known and modifiable risk factors among US adults. July 7: HCPLive
The Work of Online Volunteers
Research aimed at calculating the value of work by online community leaders, aided by DSI affiliate Stevie Chancellor, discovered that volunteers were performing millions of dollar in work per year. June 28: NYTimes; Denver Post; Seattle Times
Solving the Honeycrisp apple ancestry mystery
Researchers at the Minnesota Supercomputing Institute helped to develop custom software that helped uncover genetic relationships between cultivars by tracking pieces of DNA shared by relatives through multiple ancestral generations. June 14: Grand Rapids Herald Review
Radiologists best AI at diagnosing COVID on chest X-rays
DSI-affiliate Ju Sun and colleagues trained and tested AI models with X-ray image datasets from their own institution as well as publicly available COVID-positive and COVID-negative databases. June 03; Aunt Minnie; June 05: Radiology Business
New Machine-Learning Model Integrates Static and Time-Series Data
The research group led by the DSI's Vipin Kumar has developed a model that uses machine-learning methods to create a model that incorporates static data, such as a lake’s physical features, and time-series data. May 25: MSI
Great Lakes Digital Surface Model Products Released to the Public
The Great Lakes Alliance for Remote Sensing announced that the Digital Surface Model (DSM) strips and mosaics covering 85% of the Great Lakes Basin are now available for free use. Produced in collaboration with the University of Minnesota’s Polar Geospatial Center (PGC), these DSM strips and mosaics for the first time provide a uniform, three-dimensional understanding of upland watershed and coastal regions of the Great Lakes at 2-meter resolution. May 16: Earth Imaging Journal; Sensors and Systems; GISCafe;
2022-2023 Doctoral Dissertation Fellowship (DDF) award winners
Arun Sharma and Kshitij Tayal, both advised by DSI Affiliates and completing data science-related research, have been awarded a Doctoral Dissertaion Fellowship. May 4: UMN CSE
New Study Could Help Reduce Agricultural Greenhouse Gas Emissions
A team of researchers led by the University of Minnesota has significantly improved the performance of numerical predictions for agricultural nitrous oxide emissions. May 3: IED
Brain Studies of Complex Behavior Require Thousands of People for Accurate Results
Scientists rely on brain-wide association studies to measure brain structure and function—using MRI brain scans—and link them to complex characteristics such as personality, behavior, cognition, neurological conditions, and mental illness. In total, researchers from the Masonic Institute for the Developing Brain (MIDB), University of Minnesota Medical School, in collaboration with Washington University and other institutions, ran billions of analyses, supported by the MIDB Informatics Group and the powerful computing resources of the Minnesota Supercomputing Institute. March 23: Tech.org; March 27: FocusTechnica; SciTechDaily
New ACM journal will be first-of-its kind publication dedicated exclusively to research on recommender systems
The journal takes a holistic view on the field and calls for contributions from different subfields of computer science and information systems, such as machine learning, data mining, information retrieval, web-based systems, data science and big data, and human-computer interaction. DSI-affiliates Joe Konstan and George Karypis will be on the editorial team. March 8: EurekAlert
How AI can identify people even in anonymized datasets
When fed information about a target individuals mobile phone interactions, as well as their contacts interactions, AI can correctly pick the target out of more than 40,000 anonymous mobile phone service subscribers more than half the time. DSI-affiliate Jaideep Srivastava comments on the highlighted study. January 25: PNA
CSE launches new Data Science Initiative to improve research and build partnerships
The University of Minnesota College of Science and Engineering (CSE) recently launched a new Data Science Initiative (DSI) that aims to enhance the quality, impact, and visibility of data science research in the college as well as build collaborations within the University of Minnesota and with outside partners. Jan. 18: UMN CSE
Minnesota Partnership awards five collaborative research grants for 2022
The Minnesota Partnership for Biotechnology and Medical Genomics announced their 2022 research awardees, which includes DSI-affiliate Alena Talkachova’s “Novel implementation of spatiotemporal mapping and electroporation for the treatment of persistent atrial fibrillation.” January 13: UMN; Mayo Clinic
CS&E makes big showing at IEEE BigData 2021
The University of Minnesota's prominence in data science was on display at the 2021 IEEE International Conference on Big Data, which featured accepted papers from DSI-affiliated faculty, including Regents Professor Vipin Kumar, Distinguished McKnight University Professor George Karypis. Jan 4: CS&E
2021
Large MeerKAT data release reveals beautiful new cosmic puzzles
UMN researchers were part of an international team of scientists involved in the analysis and data release intended to change the future of space exploration. Nov. 11: UWC Astrophysics; IDiA; Science Springs; UP Jobs News; Nov. 16: Mirage; Nov. 17: RB Firehose; UMN Twin Cities; Nov. 18: ResearchBuzz; Nov. 19: Technology.org
GroupLens research shines at CSCW 2021
New research from the GroupLens research lab was presented at this year's ACM Conference on Computer-Supported Cooperative Work and Social Computing (CSCW). This is the premier venue for research on computer-supported cooperative work and social computing.
Tune in: Radical AI podcast with CS&E's Stevie Chancellor
CS&E assistant professor Stevie Chancellor was interviewed for the October 6, 2021 episode of the Radical AI podcast. She discussed AI, mental health, and the benefits and challenges of machine learning systems that are used to predict mental illness. Oct. 7: CS&E
Professor Vipin Kumar appointed first director of Data Science Initiative
University of Minnesota College of Science and Engineering (CSE) Dean Mos Kaveh has appointed Regents Professor Vipin Kumar as the first director of the new CSE Data Science Initiative. Oct. 7: UMN CSE; Oct. 14: Inside HPC
National Science Foundation invests $75 million in five new data science institutes
University of Minnesota researchers will be included in the NSF Institute for Accelerated AI Algorithms for Data-Driven Discovery, led by the University of Washington. Oct. 4: Bharat Express News; BusinessMayor; Canada Express News; Forbes; The Singapore Time; UK Times News; (6 as of Oct. 4)
University of Minnesota is part of $25M AI-based climate modeling center
University of Minnesota Twin Cities researchers are part of a new $25 million climate modeling center funded by the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) called the Learning the Earth with Artificial Intelligence and Physics (LEAP). Sept. 10: UMN CSE
15 free & open-source data resources for your next data science project
Grouplens, a research lab in the Department of Computer Science at the University of Minnesota, is listed at number 7. July 18: Towards Data Science
New machine learning methods could improve environmental predictions
UMN research is featured. UMN Computer Science and Engineering (CS&E) Ph.D. alumnus Xiaowei Jia and CS&E professor Vipin Kumar are quoted. CS&E Ph.D. candidate Jared Willard is mentioned. June 22: 7th Space; Bioengineer.org; Burada Biliyorum; Cowboy.News; Dweb.News; EurekAlert!; Mirage News; News8Plus; Newswise; Phoenixbioinfosys; Science Codex; Scienmag; Simply Amazed; Super Computing Online; Tech Xplore; UMN Twin Cities News & Events; June 23: Alopan.in; Catholic Higher Education; Ethical Editor; ILDERIMI; Lenexweb; Livdose; ScienceDaily; World News Monitor; June 24: AI Summary; June 25: ACM TechNews; June 26: Technology.org
Winner named for third annual NFL Big Data Bowl powered by AWS
UMN student working on a master's degree in data science, Sam Walczak, is part of the analytics team that won the NFL's 'Big Data Bowl' bringing their competition total to $25,000. March 19: NFL Communications
University of Minnesota part of Toyota Research Institute’s new initiative
CSE assistant professor in computer science and engineering, Hyun Soo Park, will lead the Toyota Research Institute's sponsored research at the UMN. Jan. 26: UMN News and Events