Kicking off the NSF HDR Machine Learning Challenge to Identify Anomalies in Challenges of Societal Importance, iHARP hosted a Hackathon at UMBC on November 22, 2024. Participants of the kickoff Hackathon had the opportunity to engage with three different data sets curated by three different NSF HDR Institutes. Challenge winners will get to showcase their work at a co-located workshop at the AAAI Conference in March 2025.

Thank you to everyone who attended and participated in the Hackathon Kickoff Event and a special thanks to all those who provided support and guidance to participants throughout the event!

Tolulope Ale and Maloy Kumar Devanth have been officially admitted to the Candidacy . On November 1, 2024, Tolulope Ale had the opportunity to participate in the time honored tradition of the UMBC Candidacy Ceremony marking a crucial milestone in the PhD journey. While unable to attend the ceremony, Maloy Kumar Devanth was out of town presenting his PhD research at the SIGSPATIAL 2024.

Please join us in congratulating Tolulope and Maloy on achieving this monumental milestone!

To expand research capabilities, iHARP hosted a High Performance Computing (HPC)  Bootcamp on November 12, 2024 led by iHARP Research Assistant Sai Vikas Amaraneni with support from DoIT members Roy Prouty, Philip Henry, Beamlak Bekele, and Max Breitmeyer. 

iHARP and UMCES CGC-SCIPE researchers were introduced to UMBC’s HPC resources and gained hands-on training in the Ada High-Performance Computing (HPC) cluster. The bootcamp introduced fundamental concepts in Ada such as BASH basics, and environment setup for efficient research workflows, as well as managing jobs with SLURM. Attendees used a case study involving Patch-CNN for predicting sea ice extent in the Antarctic region (research project being presented at AGU this year), in order to understand the role of HPC in research boththrough single GPU and Multi-GPU training.

We would like to thank Sai Vikas Amaraneni and DoIT members Roy Prouty, Philip Henry, Beamlak Bekele, and Max Breitmeyer for their support and dedication to furthering research capabilities in iHARP and UMCES.

Maryland State Senator Elfreth visited the iHARP center at UMBC on October 22, 2024. During her visit, she engaged with researchers and learned about their groundbreaking work.

While at the center, Senator Elfreth experienced the immersive Virtual Ice Museum, created through a collaboration between iHARP and the Imaging Research Center (IRC) at UMBC. This Virtual Ice Museum allows audiences to explore climate change research in a new immersive and interactive format through virtual reality (VR).

The University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC) is seeking an Academic Program Specialist for the iHARP Center. Reporting to the Operations and Communications Coordinator, the incumbent will plan, develop and coordinate events and workshops, assist the Director and Executive Director in research coordination efforts across multiple grants under iHARP, as well as provide administrative support to iHARP and supplemental grants.

In this position will work closely with iHARP members across multiple institutions, UMBC campus partners as well as various stakeholders. The ideal candidate will be detail-oriented, self-motivated and work independently as well as a part of a larger team.

For best consideration, submit a cover letter, resume and contact information for three professional references, (applications will be accepted until the position is filled) to: https://listings.umbc.edu/cw/en-us/job/494758/academic-program-specialist

The Academic Program Specialist role is a full-time (40 hours),  non-exempt staff position that is grant funded.

Dr. Bayu Adhi Tama attended the 1st USM Postdoctoral Research Symposium on Friday, September 30, 2024, at the University of Maryland, College Park. Dr. Tama presented a poster based on his research project Mapping subglacial bed topography using surface observations and machine learning:

challenges and opportunities. During the symposium, he had the opportunity to network with other Maryland Postdoctoral researchers. 

In summer of 2024, iHARP conducted its All Hands Meeting on June 20 through June 21, 2024 with the theme of “Convergence and Community Engagement”. The All Hands Meeting took place in Fairbanks, Alaska at the University of Alaska Fairbanks (UAF) and included a virtual option. Over 50 attendees in multiple time zones attended this year’s presentation and discussion packed meeting. The meeting brought together iHARP researchers and collaborators who shared their knowledge, insights, current state of research and future research goals. The meeting also served as a launching pad for new connections through the Pan-HDR Ice-Melt Community Council (PHICC).

Day one of the meeting premiered with the state of the institute, twelve (12) research presentations, a multi-disciplinary panel featuring senior researchers, a convergence discussion where members discussed their vision for iHARP’s future activities at the intersection of multidisciplinary activities, and a poster session where additional research was shared. The selected research presentations and poster presentation only highlighted a small portion of the work that is being conducted through iHARP and its eight collaborating institutions. Day two of the event featured Dr. Vipin Kumar as keynote speaker, and guest speakers from the External Advisory Board and the newly formed PHICC.