Talk title: "Data Science: Unlocking Scientific Research from Space to Biology"

Date: Thursday, June 28

Time: 2:00 p.m. 

Location: Auditorium E, DHMC 

Please RSVP at <https://bmds.dartmouth.edu/contact-us>

Refreshments will be provided on a first-come, first-served basis.

Biography

Daniel Crichton is a program manager, principal investigator, and principal computer scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, which he joined in 1995. He is the leader of the Center for Data Science and Technology, a joint center formed with Caltech, focusing on the research, development and implementation of data intensive systems for science and missions.  Mr. Crichton has program management appointments to multiple JPL program offices for data science and data intensive system projects in solar system exploration, earth science, and technology for NASA and non-NASA sponsors.  He is one of the founding members of the International Planetary Data Alliance (IPDA), an organization committed to building compatible international planetary science data archives. He also serves as principal investigator of several distributed data system projects for NASA and the NIH, including the Informatics Center for the NCI Early Detection Research Network (EDRN).  He architected an open source software framework, Apache OODT, for the management, distribution, and analysis of massive scientific data.  This won runner-up for NASA Software of the Year 2003 and is now hosted by the Apache Software Foundation as a top-level project, NASA’s first. Mr. Crichton recently served on the U.S. National Research Council Committee on the Analysis of Massive Data, which released its report on big data analytics. He has published over 100 papers on software and information architectures, distributed systems, and scientific data management and analysis, as well as five book chapters.  In 2017, he was awarded NASA’s Exceptional Achievement Medal. Mr. Crichton holds an M.S. degree in Computer Science from the University of Southern California and a B.S. degree in Information and Computer Science from the University of California at Irvine.

Presentation Summary 

JPL and NASA have achieved unprecedented advances in scientific knowledge through exploration of our solar system, universe and planet Earth.   The robotic spacecraft built by JPL to support this scientific research have generated enormous amounts of data that have also challenged the traditional approaches to capturing, managing, analyzing and ultimately gaining insight from the data.  Newer architectures and methodologies now are needed to consider the entire observing system, from spacecraft to archive, with integrated data-driven discovery approaches enabling data exploitation both onboard and on the ground. To address this need, the Joint Initiative on Data Science and Technology, a partnership between JPL and Caltech, is working to innovate new architectures, methodologies, and technologies that are not only enabling new approaches for space and Earth science, but are now benefiting other disciplines such as biomedicine. Through implementation of sophisticated knowledge systems for the National Cancer Institute, JPL has adapted cutting edge planetary data science technology and methods to advance cancer biomarker discovery as well as the molecular and cellular characterization of lesions and tumors. This talk will discuss the progress, challenges, and opportunities that data science can offer to systematize the future of scientific data management and analysis.