The Delaware
Valley Industrial Resource Center (DVIRC) has been awarded a
$300,000 research grant from the National
Science Foundation (NSF) to examine how an advanced data
visualization tool can organize and depict information in a dynamic
visual environment that maps connectivity between STEM assets.
“We are honored to have secured this important grant from the NSF”
We are honored to have secured this important grant from the NSF, says
Tony Girifalco, executive vice president of DVIRC and Principal
Investigator for the research. The project is funded through NSFs Early
Stage Grants for Exploratory Research (EAGER), which is designed to
support exploratory work in its early stages on untested, but
potentially transformative, research ideas or approaches. This work
represents the next step in organizing and connecting the many STEM
assets in our region, and will start by analyzing a database of power
and energy assets.
The grant was made possible through a collaboration of STEM leaders who
have experience in developing innovative STEM programming, and who will
be jointly conducting the research. We are fortunate to have assembled
a first-rate team of Co-Principal Investigators that include nationally
respected talent such as Kathy Sullivan from the Battelle Center for
Mathematics & Sciences Education Policy at Ohio State and Joe Merlino
from the 21st Century Partnership for STEM education. David
Cohen from the Ben Franklin Technology Partners of Southeastern PA
brings a wealth of expertise to the project and rounds out the team.
This EAGER project will explore how to operationally and intellectually
link tri-state regional assets into a dynamic network that supports a
robust STEM innovation ecosystem. Specifically, it will explore how an advanced
data visualization toolStarlightcan
help to organize and critically examine large collections of
disparate information types, presenting the results in a variety of rich
graphical formats. A tool such as Starlight enables a team of users to
collaborate through the power of visual analytics and to share views
across the team. The EAGER funding mechanism supports work that may be
considered especially high risk-high payoff in the sense that it
involves radically different approaches, applies new expertise, or
engages novel disciplinary or interdisciplinary perspectives.
The NSFs
Strategic Plan for 2006-11 points to the need to establish systems
that link independent actors into a centralized network in order to
address the complexity of todays science and engineering challenges.
According to the report, in large metropolitan regions the number of
actors engaged in STEM economic, research and education activities is so
large and complex, executing productive programs can be daunting. The
Greater Philadelphia region for instance, has nearly 500 active NSF
awards in basic research and STEM Education totaling over $200 million.
At the national level, the picture is even more complex, with 105
federal STEM programs distributed across 13 federal agencies comprising
$3.16 billion in annual expenditure.
This is an important award for our STEM community, says Joseph
Bordogna, former Chief Operating Officer of the NSF and the Alfred
Fitler Moore Professor of Engineering at the University of Pennsylvania.
This work builds upon our Regional Compact for STEM Education and will
set the stage for a more robust series of partnerships and relationships
to support a full range of STEM-related activities. Visual interfaces
allow people to explore and make sense of growing amounts of data
digitally. By linking sets of data visually, stakeholders will able to
more intuitively understand, see, and cultivate key linkages and
relationships.
The project builds on earlier work conducted by Kathryn Sullivan,
Director of the Battelle Center at Ohio State University which developed
test data sets and visual representations of statewide STEM innovations
in Ohio as well as years of STEM program development from partners in
southeastern Pennsylvania. According to Courtney Heppner, Senior
Associate at the Battelle Center, Our research suggests that a robust
regional innovation ecosystem must have dynamic connections between and
among interdependent, but fragmented ideas, institutions and individuals
within the ecosystem. Frontier research in this field continues to
tackle critical challenges, such as how to determine more rigorously the
link between visualizations and the underlying dynamics of the phenomena
of interest, how to develop useful tests of validity and how
visualization tools should respond to the different needs of various
user segments. This project will advance this research and we are proud
to support it.
Joe Merlino, who helped to shape the project, has a track record of
successful projects with the NSP. This research has the potential to
accelerate innovation by giving regional actors a tool by which to
develop a clearer understanding of their current STEM landscape,
including key nodes, weak and strong links, concentrations, gaps and
opportunities, he said. It could also provide a conceptual taxonomy
and lexicon that state- and regional-scale STEM initiatives can use to
foster stronger internal alignment and cross-program comparability.
Additionally, it could help policymakers better understand which
mixtures and attributes of STEM assets matter most for spurring
innovation.
The initial phase of the project will begin in September 2010 and last
approximately one year. An analysis and evaluation period will be
conducted from January through June 2011 to quantify the findings.
Results of the research will then be shared with the engineering,
education and scientific community shortly thereafter, followed by
public distribution.
If youre interested in interviewing partners in the project, please
contact Tony DeFazio at DeFazio Communications, LLC via phone:
484-532-7783 or by email at: tony@defaziocommunications.com.
About DVIRC DVIRC is a leading private, non-profit economic
development organization established in 1988 to serve the needs of
nearly 5,000 Small to Midsized advanced manufacturing Enterprises (SME)
in five counties throughout the Philadelphia region. The organizations
primary focus is to grow business value for clients through consulting
services, talent development and regional, state and federal resource
assistance, helping to establish the region as an internationally
recognized leader in manufacturing competitiveness. We believe growing
business value improves the standard of living and quality of life for
those that live and/or work in the region. A diverse board of directors
comprised of executives from the manufacturing, banking, legal and
economic development communities govern the DVIRC.
Source: Business Wire
