ARRA: Training Participants: Collaborative Research: Cyberinfrastructure for a Virtual Observatory and Ecological Informatics System (VOEIS)

The Montana-Kentucky (MTKY) cyber consortium is a partnership of the primary research universities in the two states--University of Montana (UM), Montana State University (MtSU), University of Kentucky (UK), University of Louisville (UL), Eastern Kentucky University (EKU), Flathead Lake Biological Station (FLBS) in Montana operated by UM, Hancock Biological Station (HBS) in Kentucky operated by Murray State University (MuSU), the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and Cisco Systems, Inc. NCSA and Cisco. This collaborative project between MT and KY and partners from industry and the public sector plans to develop an integrated sensor and ecological informatics system through the use of modern cyberinfrastructure resources. Through this CI project, the researchers will develop a collaborative, research-based line of inquiry and informatics framework that will function from the collection of streaming sensor data to the application of those data in simulation models and visualizations. This is to be accomplished by developing and implementing a combination of the necessary hardware, networking, software and human resources to ensure an end-to-end workflow. Intellectual Merit. The research carried out by the cyberinfrastructure will enable an integrated sensor and informatics network in the nature of a pilot project which will develop expertise in environmental science of importance in the future competitiveness of Montana and Kentucky. The consortium team, composed of faculty and students at Flathead Lake Biological Station (MT), Hancock Biological Station (KY) and research and education centers at four universities in Kentucky and two in Montana, will contribute to the design, development and application of this network. The informatics system developed through this project would be designed to manage vast amounts of legacy data, as well as new data generated by the sensor network. Data will be analyzed through a workflow environment designed in collaboration with the software experts at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) in Urbana-Champaign, IL. Private sector and collaboration partner, Cisco Systems Inc., will contribute sensor and router development and resources to this effort. Visualization of the data will be carried out jointly between NCSA and the Kentucky Center for Visualization and Virtual Environments. The combination of these resources will form a cyberinfrastructure to explore fundamental questions in environmental science, including the effects of climate change, the imposition of human activities on the environment, and the resilience of the nation?s water resources.