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Nearly $350,000 in seed grant funding was awarded to seven interdisciplinary research teams for Big Data. | Image: Getty Images

The ability to gather and analyze large and complex data sets is driving progress in many disciplines. In an effort to increase the level of activity in Big Data research at Texas A&M University, the Texas A&M Engineering Experiment Station (TEES), in partnership with the Texas A&M Division of Research, Texas A&M AgriLife Research, Texas A&M Health Science Center (TAMHSC) and the Texas A&M Transportation Institute (TTI), has awarded nearly $350,000 in seed grant funding to seven interdisciplinary research teams for Big Data.

Seed grants were also awarded for research in the increasingly important field of cybersecurity, in an effort to encourage high-impact research within Texas A&M and to help foster lasting collaborations and long-term engagement with industry. Almost $250,000 was given out to five research teams in cybersecurity.

To be eligible, proposals had to include principal investigators or co-principal investigators from at least two different academic disciplines. Teams selected received up to $50,000 each.

These seed grants will provide funds to facilitate the formation of research teams and produce preliminary results leading to peer-reviewed publications. Most importantly, the funds should lead to the development of highly competitive research proposals to federal funding agencies and commercial industry partners.

Forty-eight proposals were submitted, and seven were selected for funding for Big Data, while 14 were submitted and five were selected for funding for cybersecurity. The funded research projects are:

Awarded Seed Grants for Interdisciplinary Research in Big Data

“Virtual Social Genome Data Library: A Secure Data Infrastructure for Population Informatics”

Principal investigator (PI): Dr. Hye-Chung Kum, Texas A&M Health Science Center (TAMHSC). Co-principal investigators (Co-PIs): Dr. Michael Morrisey, TAMHSC; Dr. Dilma Da Silva, Department of Computer Science & Engineering; and Dr. Mark Fossett, Department of Sociology.

“Understanding Multi-Scale Hydrology: Fusion of Big Data from Ground Networks and Space-Based Satellites”

PI: Dr. Binayak Mohandy, Department of Biological & Agricultural Engineering. Co-PI: Dr. Nick Duffield, Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering.

“Personalized Risk Assessment through Genomic and Clinical Data Integration: A Big Data Approach”

PI: Dr. Arun Sen, Department of Information and Operations Management. Co-PIs: Dr. Aniruddha Datta, Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering, and Dr. Nancy Dickey, TAMHSC.

“Learning Material Properties from In-situ Transmission Electron Microscopy Video Data”

PI: Dr. Yu Ding, Department of Industrial & Systems Engineering. Co-PIs: Dr. Tahir Cagin, Department of Materials Science & Engineering, and Dr. Lan Zhou, Department of Statistics.

“Mining Satellite Measurements to Construct a Statistical Parameterization of Rainfall for use in Climate Models”

PI: Dr. Ramalingam Saravanan, Department of Atmospheric Sciences. Co-PIs: Dr. Courtney Schumacher, Department of Atmospheric Sciences, and Dr. Mikyoung Jun, Department of Statistics.

“Improving Understanding of Travel Behavior and Transportation Systems Through Big Data Analytics”

PI: Dr. Shawn Turner, Texas A&M Transportation Institute (TTI). Co-PI: Dr. Nick Duffield, Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering. 

“Development of ‘Big Data’ Scientific Workflow Management Tools for the Materials Genome Initiative: Materials Galaxy” 

PI: Dr. Rodolfo Aramayo, Department of Biology. Co-PIs: Dr. Raymundo Arroyave, Department of Materials Science & Engineering, and Dr. Ricardo Gutierrez-Osuna, Department of Computer Science & Engineering.

Awarded Seed Grants for Interdisciplinary Research in Cybersecurity

“Investigating the Effects of Cyber-Attacks on Safety and Mobility in a Connected Driving Environment”

PI: Dr. Alireza Talebpour, Department of Civil Engineering. Co-PIs: Dr. Srinivasa Sunkari, TTI; Dr. Srinivas Shakkottai and Dr. Narasimha Reddy, Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering.

“Boosting Attack Identification through Correlated System & Network Monitoring”

PI: Dr. Nick Duffield, Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering. Co-PI: Dr. Guofei Gu, Department of Computer Science & Engineering.

“Detection, Classification and Mitigation of Cybersecurity Attacks on Synchrophasor Systems”

PI: Dr. Mladen Kezunovic, Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering. Co-PIs: Dr. Jyh-Charn Liu, Dr. Dilma Da Silva and Dr. Guofei Gu, Department of Computer Science & Engineering

“Fly Over Wire: Coordinated Power Grid and Unmanned Aerial System Cyber Attacks”

PI: Dr. Robin Murphy, Department of Computer Science & Engineering. Co-PI: Dr. Le Xie, Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering.

“Securing Our Critical Infrastructure Networks” 

PI: Dr. Narasimha Reddy, Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering. Co-PIs: Dr. Riccardo Bettati, Department of Computer Science & Engineering, and Dr. P.R. Kumar, Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering.