Institute for Interdisciplinary Data Sciences

Learn how to use the newly available Falcon Supercomputer to accelerate your research! At this hands-on workshop, research computing experts will walk you through how to log in, transfer data, submit jobs, and answer any questions you have about using Falcon for your specific research.
This event is open to faculty, staff, students, and postdocs who are interested in utilizing Falcon for research computing. Participants will need to bring a laptop with them and request an account on Falcon prior to the workshop.
Jan 18th is an in-person workshop. Jan 19th is a remote workshop on Zoom.
Register by Jan 11th. https://www.iids.uidaho.edu/registration.php?eid=63e69a1958d97

An NIH NIGMS supplement to the University of Idaho INBRE Program (PI: Carolyn Hovde Bohach) funded the retrospective genomic surveillance of 1168 covid-positive patient samples collected during the 2020-21 academic year via the U of I testing program. Understanding transmission dynamics of viruses like SARS-CoV-2 at universities is crucial because these settings have potential for rapid viral spread due to a young adult population predisposed to low disease severity. This research led to a recent publication in Scientific Reports from Kimberly R. Andrews, et al. - Genomic surveillance identifies potential risk factors for SARS-CoV-2 transmission at a mid-sized university in a small rural town. Read the full story at https://www.iids.uidaho.edu/news.php?newsid=147

Learn how to use the newly available Falcon Supercomputer to accelerate your research! At this hands-on workshop, research computing experts will walk you through how to log in, transfer data, submit jobs, and answer any questions you have about using Falcon for your specific research.

This event is open to faculty, staff, students, and postdocs who are interested in utilizing Falcon for research computing. Participants will need to bring a laptop with them and request an account on Falcon prior to the workshop.

Jan 18th is an in-person workshop. Jan 19th is a remote workshop on Zoom.

Register by Jan 11th. https://www.iids.uidaho.edu/registration.php?eid=63e69a1958d97

PrinTimber was recently featured in the University of Idaho’s Letter from the President. U of I President C. Scott Green focuses on U of I doctoral student Robert Carne’s robotics experience and his involvement with the project. Congratulations to Carne, PI Michael Maughn, and all the PrinTimber researchers for this well deserved recognition. Read more athttps://printimber.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/PresidentsLetter.pdf

Join IIDS for the Fall Seminar Series

Thursday, November 30th, 12:30 pm
Buchanan Engineering Lab 205

Boyu Zhang
Asst Professor - Dept of Computer Science
U of I College of Engineering

"AI-Driven Automatic Wildlife Health Monitoring"
The widespread use of camera traps has led to an abundance of wildlife imagery, presenting a challenge in effectively utilizing this large data volume. While progress has been made in animal detection and classification from these images, a gap remains in detailed, fine-grained analysis. We proposed to enrich the detailed information of the camera trap images by estimating animal postures to identify key body parts accurately and, thus, perform fine-grained analysis by introducing insights from wildlife professionals. This expert input is crucial, especially when working with smaller scale training datasets, allowing us to achieve more precise analysis.
Via expert-guided feature fusion, the proposed method significantly improves the accuracy of differentiating between mule deer and white-tailed deer species. Furthermore, we augmented with expert knowledge to effectively estimate the fat thickness in wild mule deer. This approach has been shown to surpass the accuracy of traditional, experience-based human visual assessments. Such advancements are key in monitoring the health of wild mule deer populations, contributing to the development of effective conservation policies, and aiding in the early detection of diseases. The proposed method's adaptability to various wildlife species highlights its potential to enhance wildlife conservation efforts substantially.

See full seminar schedule at https://www.iids.uidaho.edu/events.php

For the first time since its establishment 30 years ago, the Science Education Partnership Award (SEPA) program of the National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS) of the NIH has awarded funding to a project in Idaho. The SEPA program supports innovative science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) and Informal Science Education (ISE) initiatives for Pre-K to 12th grade. U of I researchers Barrie Robison (PI) with the College of Science and Terry Soule (Co-PI) with the College of Engineering have been awarded Idaho’s first SEPA grant through their work with Polymorphic Games, U of I’s unique, interdisciplinary, STEM-based video game studio.

Read more at https://iids.uidaho.edu/news.php?newsid=146

Join IIDS for the Fall Seminar Series

Thursday, October 19th, 12:30 pm
Buchanan Engineering Lab 205

Evan Eskew
Data Scientist with UofI IIDS
Computational One Health

"How global change changes pathogen spillover: case studies on the wildlife trade, invasive species, and climate change"

For both wildlife diseases and zoonoses, reducing pathogen spillover risk is a promising strategy to preemptively protect host health. In this talk, I will discuss recent projects that work at the intersection of global change processes and pathogen spillover, with the ultimate goal of informing disease management strategies. First, I will walk through the use of wildlife trade data to evaluate recent United States government policy actions meant to prevent the introduction and spread of the deadly amphibian pathogen Batrachochytrium salamandrivorans. Second, I will use the Lassa fever disease system to explore counterintuitive consequences of invasive species introduction for viral spillover risk to humans. Finally, I will share projections of cross-species pathogen transmission patterns accounting for global climate change.

See the full seminar schedule at https://iids.uidaho.edu/events.php