CIRSS Seminar: Melissa Cragin

Melissa Cragin, executive director of the Midwest Big Data Hub and iSchool affiliate assistant professor, will give the talk, "Midwest Big Data Hub: Partnering for the Big Data Innovation Ecosystem."

Abstract: The Big Data (BD) Regional Innovation Hubs were launched in 2015 by the National Science Foundation as part of its investment in the federal Big Data Research and Development Initiative. The BD Innovation Hubs and related investments are intended to accelerate and strengthen the data ecosystem, and it is the mission of the Midwest Big Data Hub (MBDH) to develop effective cross-sector networks ready to utilize data science and the data ecosystem to solve problems of regional and societal interest. The MBDH is a growing organization of public and private partners investing in data, tools, and infrastructure to improve access and use of shared and public data for scientific discovery and improved data-to-decision systems. Based at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) at the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign, the MBDH is a collaboration with Indiana University, Iowa State University, the University of Michigan, and the University of North Dakota, that supports training, education and workforce development, and facilitates access to data infrastructure, tools and services for constituents across the region. The 12 states served by the MBDH are: Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, South Dakota, and Wisconsin. Thematic areas of interest and funding include Digital Agriculture; Water Quality; Advanced Materials and Manufacturing; Smart, Connected, and Resilient Communities; Big Data & Biomedicine; and, Data Science Education and Workforce Development. This talk will highlight current projects and evolving activities across our developing Industry-Government-Academic data partnerships.

Cragin is executive director of the Midwest Big Data Hub, based at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) at Illinois, and a PI for the Open Storage Network collaborative project. Prior to joining NCSA, she was staff associate in the Office of the Assistant Director, Directorate of Biological Sciences at the National Science Foundation (NSF), after serving there as an AAAS Science & Technology Policy Fellow. At NSF, she guided development of data policy and accelerated community engagement on research data management and public access. She earned a PhD from Illinois and an MLIS from Rutgers University.