The departments of civil, environmental & architectural engineering; computer science; and electrical, computer & energy engineering are excited to host a visit with Nick Duffield, the Royce E. Wisenbaker Professor of Electrical & Computer Engineering and director of the Institute of Data Science at Texas A&M University. 

Duffield is a prominent scholar in data science, AI/ML and computer networking, including graph sampling and learning, network measurement and resilience, and applications in transportation, agriculture, infrastructure, and operations. There are several ongoing initiatives and opportunities for CU faculty and researchers to collaborate with Nick and his team at Texas A&M University. We encourage participation by all who have overlapping interests or are just curious to learn more about the latest and greatest in these domains.

As part of this campus visit, Duffield will also be available for a one-hour faculty forum for CU faculty and researchers to have informal conversation  and discuss potential collaboration opportunities. This forum is scheduled for Thursday, Jan. 30, from 10:45 - 11:45 am in DLC 1B70. RSVPs are requested for the forum and seminar. 

Seminar Information

Abstract: Universities are large and complex organizations that increasingly leverage operational data to manage administrative and infrastructure functions across a range of timescales ranging from planning, through daily operations, to troubleshooting and event response. Due to the constraints and demands of daily operations management, the potential for such data to improve operations has o=en not been fully realized. This provides an opportunity for faculty to develop partnerships with operational organizations that capitalize on their institutional data investments to improve campus operations. This talk describes data-driven research originating in operational collaborations in the Texas A&M Operational Data Science Lab and related problems involving computer vision in transportation and infrastructure management. We argue that faculty and students engaged in these activities benefit from exposure to real-world problems, not only through the broader impact that results, but in informing future use-inspired research in these and cognate areas that integrate both across disciplines and also vertically from theory, through systems, to practice. Achieving these goals has the potential to transform universities into living laboratories for Data Science, accelerating the pace and effectiveness of research, teaching, and outreach.

Bio: Nick Duffield is Director of the Texas A&M Institute of Data Science (TAMIDS) and holds the Royce E. Wisenbaker Professorship in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Texas A&M University. His research combines foundations and applications of Data Science, AI and computer networking, including graph sampling and learning, network measurement and resilience, and applications in transportation, agriculture, infrastructure, and operations. In his TAMIDS role, he has led development of new education programs, courses, and professional training in Data Science, and created the Thematic Labs program that grows ecosystems in emerging areas in Data Science and AI encompassing research, education, and community building. He is an ACM Fellow, IEEE Fellow, and IET Fellow, and was a co-recipient of the ACM SIGMETRICS Test of Time Award in 2012 and 2013 for work in Network Tomography. From 1995 to 2013 Duffield worked at AT&T Labs, Florham Park, NJ, where he was a Distinguished Member of Technical Staff and an AT&T Fellow. Prior to that he held faculty and postdoctoral positions in Germany and Ireland. He received a Ph.D. in Physics from the University of London, UK in 1987 and the M.Math and B.A. in Natural Sciences from the University of Cambridge, UK, in 1983 and 1982, respectively.

Questions? Please contact Amir Behzadan (amir.behzadan@colorado.edu)