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Technology: Science and Data Management Converge
Central to future research in Biotech, Astronomy, Chemistry and a host of other ‘hard’ and ‘soft’ sciences will be data analysis and data management. Digital data streaming from cameras, videos, and various sensor equipment is becoming central to study and advanced research in almost every academic field.
From super-sensitive telescopes of astronomers, to high-energy physics colliders of physicists, to biotech DNA sequencers of biologists, to the digitization of all books ever written — increasingly more and larger sets of data are becoming available for academic analysis and research.
“Science these days has basically turned into a data-management problem” said Jimmy Lin, associate professor at the University of Maryland.
Most of today’s graduates are not prepared to analyze the huge data sets that we’re now capable of collecting. That’s a problem. Most schools don’t have the equipment and network to allow their students to develop experience with analyzing very large data sets. But companies like IBM and Google and government agencies like the National Science Foundation are funding research at various US universities.
The New York Times reports on various university projects in a variety of fields that are attempting to tackle the problems of dealing with very large amounts of data. The projects include astronomers at the University of Washington, biologists at Purdue, and computer scientists at the University of Maryland.
“Historically, it has been tough to get the type of data these researchers need out of industry,” said James C. French, a research director at the National Science Foundation. “But we’re at this point where a biologist needs to see these types of volumes of information to begin to think about what is possible in terms of commercial applications.”
