2016-17 Peebles Memorial Lecture in Information Technology

The 2016-17 Peebles Memorial Lecture in Information Technology featured presentations by Dr. Franco Pestilli and Gary Motz on November 9, 2016, in conjunction with the Research Services Expo in the Herman B Wells Library at Indiana University.

• Dr. Franco Pestilli: Dr. Pestilli, an assistant Professor in the Indiana University Department of Psychological and Brain Sciencesan, an associated member of the IU Neuroscience and Cognitive Science programs, and a faculty affiliate of the IU Network Science Institute, presented "Big data and high performance computing, opportunities for neuroscience research".

  Abstract: Neuroscience is transforming. Brain data collected in large human populations across institutions are being openly shared. See for example the humanconnectome.org or ukbiobank.ac.uk projects. This process is opening new opportunities for a new era of Big Data Neuroscience (Pestilli Nature Scientific Data 2015). In this lecture Dr. Pestilli presented research using computational methods for big data analysis, exploiting high performance computing to generate large reference datasets in efforts to map human brain connectomes in living human brains.

  Bio: Before coming to IU, Dr. Pestilli was a Research Associate in the Department of Psychology at Stanford University. He worked with Brian Wandell to study the network of white matter connections of the human brain. Dr. Pestilli also worked at the RIKEN Brain Science Institute in Japan with Justin Gardner to study the visual attention system. He received a postdoctoral fellowship from the Japanese Society for the Advancement of Science for his work at RIKEN. Before that, Dr. Pestilli worked in the Department of Neuroscience at Columbia University with Vincent Ferrera on Neuroeconomics and vision. His postdoctoral work at Columbia was funded by a fellowship from Columbia's Italian Academy for Advanced Studies in America.

  Watch Dr. Pestilli's lecture (via YouTube).

• Gary Motz: Mr. Motz, a Research Associate in the IU Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences and Project Coordinator for the IU Center for Biological Research Collections (CBRC) Paleontology Collection, presented "Pervasive Technology and cyberinfrastructure working for biodiversity informatics and collection-based research".

  Abstract: IU's research community has a wealth of resources for understanding the history of life on our planet that take advantage of tremendous human capital, collections of physical objects, and remarkable technological advances. When these assets work together in synergy, the potential for innovation in "big-data" driven questions about Earth's flora and fauna (past and present) is dramatically enhanced. The Center for Biological Research Collections has partnered with UITS and the IU Libraries to bring biodiversity collection research into the 21st century by building upon well over a century's worth of specimen collections to enhance research, teaching, and broad engagement of our collections using augmented reality, high performance and high-throughput computing, machine learning, citizen-science, and 3D printing. In this lecture, Gary Motz presented the broad applicability of technological innovations and the use of IU cyberinfrastructure in dramatically enhancing the discoverability, accessibility, and research potential of a treasure trove of invaluable biodiversity collections.

  Bio: Mr. Motz is a paleobiologist but wears many different hats as the Digitization Coordinator for IU's Center for Biological Research Collections. His research focuses on the formation of biodiversity hotspots through deep time, and the ecological significance of speciation and predator/prey dynamics in southeast Asia. He has traveled to museums and conducted field work all over the world in order to put together a big-picture understanding, using digitized bio-collections and rich metadata contexts, of why biodiversity is critical to the health of the planet. Advancement of cyberinfrastructure and technological innovation are at the crux of what makes biodiversity research all the buzz in the biosciences community.

  Watch Mr. Motz's lecture (via YouTube).