To further tap into the hidden gems of research produced by faculty, graduate students and postdoctoral scholars, 麻豆原创 is initiating a new program backed by the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) with mentoring from the Georgia Institute of Technology.

The $6 million, NSF-funded interdisciplinary project, led by Ivan Garibay, an associate professor in the will create a 麻豆原创 Venture Lab that supports budding entrepreneurs through the commercialization process and establishes a newly organized research umbrella at the university.

The funding for the 麻豆原创 Venture Lab is provided through NSF鈥檚 Accelerating Research Translation (ART) program, housed in the NSF Directorate for Technology, Innovation and Partnerships. 麻豆原创 is one of 18 U.S. universities to receive funding through this newly established program.

“NSF endeavors to empower academic institutions to build the pathways and structures needed to speed and scale their research into products and services that benefit the nation,” said NSF Director Sethuraman Panchanathan in a release. “The Accelerating Research Translation program in NSF鈥檚 new Technology, Innovation and Partnerships (TIP) Directorate identifies, and champions institutions positioned to expand their research translation capacity by investing in activities essential to move results to practice.”

The 麻豆原创 Venture Lab will train and enable faculty, graduate students and postdocs to identify and launch viable businesses based on their novel research. It will provide guidelines on business development, match 麻豆原创 researchers with relevant industry partners and, for a select few, provide funding through the NSF ART grant. The entity will be modeled after the business startup program at Georgia Tech, which will provide mentorship during the development phase.

鈥溌槎乖粹�檚 world-class faculty are preparing students to work and lead in the industries of tomorrow, and we are grateful to the NSF for their support in enabling us to speed up research, discovery, and entrepreneurship,鈥� says 麻豆原创 President Alexander N. Cartwright. 鈥淲orking with Georgia Institute of Technology, which will serve as a mentoring institution, we look forward to expanding pathways for ideas, products, and programs that make positive impacts on society and keep pace with the speed of innovation.鈥�

Garibay says after comparing notes with Georgia Tech, the project team realized they would benefit from a Venture Lab dedicated to the commercialization of 麻豆原创 research.

鈥淲e plan to create that infrastructure here at 麻豆原创 and hope to accelerate the growth of these businesses,鈥� Garibay says.

Community and Societal Impact

Georgia Tech will serve as a mentoring partner for 麻豆原创鈥檚 Venture Lab development. Keith McGregor, the founder of the Georgia Tech VentureLab, will serve as one of the mentors to the 麻豆原创 team, which includes co-principal investigators Carolina Cruz-Neira, a professor in the ; Cameron Ford, an associate professor in the , Svetlana Shtrom, the director of the ; and Winston Schoenfeld, interim vice president for research and innovation. The University of Florida will also collaborate on the project, providing input that will help 麻豆原创 adapt Georgia Tech鈥檚 model to the Florida ecosystem.

Locally, the program is expected to have a positive impact on the Orlando area.

鈥淐entral Florida is mostly a service-based economy,鈥� Garibay says. 鈥淥ur median salary is below the nationwide average. The 麻豆原创 Venture Lab will foster creation of technology companies, which will generate high-paying jobs and will attract a lot of growth to this area.鈥�

The program will also provide pathways for local industry to partner with 麻豆原创 researchers. Organizations such as DeepWork Capital, the Entrepreneurs Alliance of Orlando and the National Security Innovation Network have already agreed to mentor the 麻豆原创 entrepreneurs and to participate in the ART project advisory board.

ART Seed Translational Research Projects

Multiple seed translational research projects will be selected for funding through the ART program. The first project, led by Professor Guifang Li of the College of Optics and Photonics (CREOL), will establish a prototype receiver capable of high-speed space-to-ground laser communication that resists atmospheric turbulence. Once the prototype is developed, Li and his team plan to test the project at the Cape Canaveral Spaceport. Potential clients for the receiver include Blue Origin, OneWeb Technologies and SpaceX.

The second project is led by Center for Research in Computer Vision Assistant Professor Yogesh Rawat. He plans to develop a prototype software that can detect human activities shown in live video streams while ensuring that private information isn鈥檛 exposed. The software would be used in surveillance systems to identify emergency situations or potential threats to public safety so that law enforcement or first responders could act quickly to prevent harm.

Other seed translational research projects will be selected through a university competition that will commence next August. 麻豆原创 researchers from all disciplines will be encouraged to apply.

Education Through Action

麻豆原创 graduates like Wolfe, Drake and countless others were able to launch their businesses with the aid of the skills they developed at 麻豆原创 as well as the encouragement they received from 麻豆原创 researchers and business development programs. To keep the pipeline of Knight-trepreneurs flowing, the NSF ART grant will enhance 麻豆原创鈥檚 educational offerings in entrepreneurship.

The College of Engineering and Computer Science and the College of Business Administration courses already offered in this topic would expand to allow graduate students and postdocs to take the courses, allowing for a greater diversity of knowledge, skill and perspective in the classroom.

The goal is to instill an entrepreneurial skillset in the next generation so they can better qualify for jobs in changing industries or launch and grow their own business ventures, says Ford, who is also the executive director of the Blackstone LaunchPad and the director for the Center for Entrepreneurial Leadership.

鈥淭he careers that our students are going into are dynamic,鈥� Ford says. 鈥淲e鈥檙e seeing a lot of changes and disruptions to the industries they work in, so our students need to be adaptable and resilient. They can add value to the companies they work for if they can learn to solve novel problems and execute initiatives. It鈥檚 not enough to innovate solutions 鈥� the goal is to deliver innovations to those who need them, improving social and economic wellbeing in the process.鈥�

Garibay says that, for engineering students in particular, learning about entrepreneurship can change their whole mindset.

鈥淚 think it鈥檚 life-changing,鈥� Garibay says. 鈥淓ntrepreneurship is something we鈥檝e done for a long time and the feedback that I get back from students is that it鈥檚 transformative.鈥�

麻豆原创 Innovate

The NSF ART program doesn鈥檛 just allow 麻豆原创 to create a business hub and enhance graduate education 鈥� it also establishes a new research umbrella for the university called 麻豆原创 Innovate. This enhanced infrastructure will bring together the Office of Technology Transfer, the Center for Entrepreneurial Leadership and the Business Incubation Program along with the developing Venture Lab. 麻豆原创 Innovate will be overseen by Schoenfeld, who leads the Office of Research.

鈥溌槎乖� has been consistently ranked as a leading technology-generating institution with a strong entrepreneurial spirit among faculty and students,鈥� Schoenfeld says. 鈥淭he NSF ART program leverages this to drive new levels of technology translation that ensures strong societal benefit from the innovation across 麻豆原创.鈥�

Shtrom says that through the ART program, the Office of Technology Transfer will strengthen and enhance the university鈥檚 commercialization infrastructure to transform promising research results into products that solve pressing problems and improve people鈥檚 lives.

鈥淭he NSF funding will allow us to dedicate resources toward cultivating the entrepreneurial mindset and culture at 麻豆原创, increasing the number of startup companies launched to commercialize university technologies, and growing funding and licensing revenue to support and expand the research enterprise,鈥� Shtrom says. 鈥溌槎乖� is committed to nurturing and sustaining this virtuous cycle of research and innovation to maximize impact for 麻豆原创, Central Florida, and the nation.鈥�

The finding comes from an examination of posts labeled controversial on social news aggregation site Reddit. To perform the study, the researchers analyzed more than 47,000 posts about cybersecurity in a Reddit dataset that was collected by the Computational Simulation of Online Social Behavior (SocialSim) program of the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency.

Researchers found that these posts were seen by nearly twice the number of people and traveled nearly twice as fast when compared to posts not labeled controversial. The findings were published recently in the .

Reddit is one of the most visited websites in the U.S. A post is labeled controversial by a Reddit algorithm if it receives a certain number of polarized views, or a moderator can label a post with any number of comments as controversial.

The posts analyzed in the study included topics that wouldn鈥檛 be considered traditionally controversial but were labeled as so by Reddit, such as a personal computer giveaway offer.

The research is important because it shows that disagreement may be a powerful way to get people to pay attention to messages, says study co-author Ivan Garibay, an associate professor in 麻豆原创鈥檚 .

However, he advises caution to those inducing disagreement in their social media posts.

鈥淭here may be an incentive in terms of influence and audience size for a social media user to consistently include controversial and provocative topics on their posts,鈥� Garibay says. 鈥淭his benefits the person posting the messages. However, controversial comments can be divisive, which could contribute to a polarized audience and society.鈥�

Reddit鈥檚 definition of a controversial post, which tends to depend on increasing numbers of both likes and dislikes, is different than the traditional advertiser鈥檚 definition of a controversial post, which would contain truly provocative or taboo messaging, says Yael Zemack-Rugar, an associate professor in 麻豆原创鈥檚 .

鈥淭o give this idea life, you may like a recent ad for Toyota, and I may not,鈥� Zemack-Rugar says. 鈥淭his will not make it controversial. But if the ad featured Colin Kaepernick, as the Nike ad did in 2018, after he recently refused to recite the national anthem during his games, now we are talking controversial. There is an underlying tone that is much deeper and more meaningful.鈥�

Reddit posts are also more akin to word-of-mouth communication since they are user generated and not paid advertising, she says.

The study鈥檚 findings are consistent with past research that has found that traditional controversy increases the spread of word of mouth and discussions online, especially when contributions are anonymous, as they somewhat are on Reddit, Zemack-Rugar says.

Of the more than 47,000 posts, approximately 23,000 posts were labeled controversial, and about 24,000 were noncontroversial.

The researchers found an association between controversially labeled comments and the collective attention that the audience paid to them.

For the controversial posts, there were more than 60,000 total comments, whereas for the noncontroversial posts, there were less than 25,000 total comments.

A network analysis examining the reach and speed of the posts, showed that nearly twice the number of people saw controversial content compared to noncontroversial content and that controversial content traveled nearly twice as fast.

The researchers limited posts in their analysis to those that had at least 100 comments.

Jasser Jasser, a doctoral student in 麻豆原创鈥檚 , and the study鈥檚 lead author, says the findings highlight the need to better understand why the content labeled in Reddit as controversial spreads.

鈥淭he next step in this work is to analyze the language used to induce such controversy and why it brings the attention of the social media users,鈥� Jasser says.

Study co-authors were Steve Scheinert, a senior solutions specialist with a professional services company and Alexander V. Mantzaris, an assistant professor in 麻豆原创鈥檚 .

The study was funded with support from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency.

Garibay received his doctorate in computer science from 麻豆原创. He joined 麻豆原创鈥檚 Department of Industrial Engineering and Management Systems, part of 麻豆原创鈥檚 College of Engineering and Computer Science, in 2016.

Social media has become a dominant form of communication for individuals, and for companies looking to market and sell their products and services. Properly understanding and responding to customer feedback on Twitter, Facebook and other social media platforms is critical for success, but it is incredibly labor intensive.

That鈥檚 where sentiment analysis comes in. The term refers to the automated process of identifying the emotion 鈥� either positive, negative or neutral 鈥� associated with text. While artificial intelligence refers to logical data analysis and response, sentiment analysis is akin to correctly identifying emotional communication. A 麻豆原创 team developed a technique that accurately detects sarcasm in social media text.

The team鈥檚 findings were recently published in the 听.

Effectively the team taught the computer model to find patterns that often indicate sarcasm and combined that with teaching the program to correctly pick out cue words in sequences that were more likely to indicate sarcasm. They taught the model to do this by feeding it large data sets and then checked its accuracy.

鈥淭he presence of sarcasm in text is the main hindrance in the performance of sentiment analysis,鈥� says Associate Professor of engineering Ivan Garibay 鈥�00MS 鈥�04PhD. 鈥淪arcasm isn鈥檛 always easy to identify in conversation, so you can imagine it鈥檚 pretty challenging for a computer program to do it and do it well. We developed an interpretable deep learning model using multi-head self-attention and gated recurrent units. The multi-head self-attention module aids in identifying crucial sarcastic cue-words from the input, and the recurrent units learn long-range dependencies between these cue-words to better classify the input text.鈥�

The team, which includes computer science doctoral student Ramya Akula, began working on this problem under a DARPA grant that supports the organization鈥檚 Computational Simulation of Online Social Behavior program.

鈥淪arcasm has been a major hurdle to increasing the accuracy of sentiment analysis, especially on social media, since sarcasm relies heavily on vocal tones, facial expressions and gestures that cannot be represented in text,鈥� says Brian Kettler, a program manager in DARPA鈥檚 Information Innovation Office (I2O). 鈥淩ecognizing sarcasm in textual online communication is no easy task as none of these cues are readily available.鈥�

This is one of the challenges Garibay鈥檚 is studying. CASL is an interdisciplinary research group dedicated to the study of complex phenomena such as the global economy, the global information environment, innovation ecosystems, sustainability, and social and cultural dynamics and evolution. CASL scientists study these problems using data science, network science, complexity science, cognitive science, machine learning, deep learning, social sciences, team cognition, among other approaches.

鈥淚n face-to-face conversation, sarcasm can be identified effortlessly using facial expressions, gestures, and tone of the speaker,鈥� Akula says. 鈥淒etecting sarcasm in textual communication is not a trivial task as none of these cues are readily available. Specially with the explosion of internet usage, sarcasm detection in online communications from social networking platforms is much more challenging.鈥�

Garibay is an associate professor in . He has several degrees including a Ph.D. in computer science from 麻豆原创. Garibay is the director of 麻豆原创鈥檚 Artificial Intelligence and Big Data Initiative. He is also director of the master鈥檚 program in data analytics. His research areas include complex systems, agent-based models, information and misinformation dynamics on social media, artificial intelligence and machine learning. He has more than 75 peer-reviewed papers and more than $9.5 million in funding from various national agencies.

Akula is a doctoral scholar and graduate research assistant at CASL. She has a master鈥檚 degree in computer science from聽Technical University of Kaiserslautern in Germany and a bachelor鈥檚 degree in computer science engineering from聽Jawaharlal Nehru Technological University, India.

DARPA awarded $6.3 million to a team led by Associate Professor Wingyan Chung of the 麻豆原创鈥檚 Institute for Simulation and Training, and another $6.2 million to a second team led by Assistant Professor Ivan Garibay, director of 麻豆原创鈥檚 Complex Adaptive Systems Laboratory in the College of Engineering & Computer Science.

It鈥檚 part of a new SocialSim program from DARPA that鈥檚 been in the works for more than a year. The federal agency has contracted with nine teams from universities and research institutes across the country to gain a deeper grasp of social network dynamics. 麻豆原创 was the only institution to have two teams funded.

The researchers are tasked with developing accurate and scalable simulations to provide DARPA with a better understanding of online social behavior and its evolution. Potential applications include countering the spread of misinformation by terrorists and malicious hackers, profiling online populations for social research, and forecasting online sales and activities for e-commerce.

鈥淒ifferent users take advantage of social media and other media channels to spread their ideas,鈥� Chung said. 鈥淏y accurately modeling and simulating such activities, our techniques will enable better understanding of such behavior and inform the development of policies and strategies.鈥�

Chung鈥檚 team will develop a suite of models, tools and techniques to illuminate socio-behavioral properties and network interactions in large online populations. He will collaborate with co-principal investigator Elizabeth Mustaine, professor and chair of the Department of Sociology, who specializes in social theories, criminology and cyber stalking.

Chung, who is director of the Institute for Simulation and Training鈥檚 Cyber Intelligence Lab, has done extensive research on social media analytics, covering such topics as border security, e-commerce business intelligence and the spread of infectious disease. Mustaine has researched cyber bullying, and supervises graduate students to conduct this research.

Garibay鈥檚 team will create and train thousands of AI 鈥渁gents鈥� to think and act like humans on social media networks. Garibay compared it to a hurricane prediction model, but instead of a storm鈥檚 path and speed, it would predict how far and how fast propaganda would spread on social networks.

鈥淒ARPA considers how information is propagating in social media an issue of national security. The core area of interest for DARPA is how foreign states can affect the opinion of people in the United States,鈥� said Garibay, of the聽聽Department of Industrial Engineering and Management Systems.

The AI agents created by Garibay鈥檚 team have varied traits that govern how they would interact with one another online. Some are more emotional, some more rational, some more social, and together they will react like humans do on social media. When scaled up with the help of massive computing power, the AI network will be able to simulate how quickly information of different types will spread. Armed with a better understanding of propaganda propagation, researchers could potentially counter it more quickly.

鈥淭his will be like a test bed 鈥� a human-like network modeling with human-like behavior that replicates the phenomenon that occurs in real social networks,鈥� Garibay said.

Garibay and his colleagues used a similar approach in earlier research, developing a model to determine what led to the population decline of the Anasazi people in the Southwest in the last millennium.

Garibay鈥檚 麻豆原创 team on the DARPA project includes Associate Professor Gita Sukthankar of the Department of Computer Science; Stephen M. Fiore, professor in the Department of Philosophy and the Institute for Simulation and Training; and Assistant Professor Alexander Mantzaris of the Department of Statistics.

While 麻豆原创 is the lead institution on both teams, others are subcontracting. Researchers from the University of North Carolina Charlotte, Florida Institute of Technology and Cornerstone Software Solutions, a company in Central Florida Research Park, are subcontracting for Garibay鈥檚 team. And researchers from the Florida Institute for Human and Machine Cognition and the State University of New York at Albany are subcontracting for Chung鈥檚 team.

Recruiting cutting-edge scientists and engineers from Florida鈥檚 universities and research centers around the state, is now accepting applications until May 29, for admission into its fall program which begins August 24, 2015.聽 The 10-week program will provide selected research teams with first-hand knowledge about entrepreneurship, while exploring and validating the commercial opportunities surrounding their invention.

The NSF Innovation Corps (I-Corps) is the agency鈥檚 signature effort to assist teams of university scientists and post-doctoral or graduate students to venture outside of their laboratories and into the marketplace to test assumptions about the commercial market opportunity.聽 The primary goal of NSF 聽I-Corps program is to provide participants with the tools to connect lab discoveries to market and societal needs.

鈥淭he I-Corps program is the NSF鈥檚 conduit for researchers that have a technology or an invention to validate the commercial opportunity.聽 Over a ten-week period teams get out of the lab to conduct about 100 interviews in order to test the validity of their assumptions about the market need and opportunity. Teams decide whether or not to pursue the path of additional funding and company formation at the conclusion of the program,鈥� said Ivan Garibay, 麻豆原创 I-Corps Program Director.

麻豆原创 I-Corps teams generally consist of an Entrepreneurial Lead (EL), Principal Investigator (PI) and Industry/I-Corps Mentor.聽 These aspiring entrepreneurs will participate in an immersive, hands-on program designed to teach them how to test their ideas, gauge feasibility, understand market demand, examine competition and develop mutually beneficial partnerships to help transition their ideas into profitable enterprises.

Once teams complete the 麻豆原创 I-Corps program, the path to commercial market continues with opportunities for funding in NSF鈥檚 national I-Corps program and SBIR/STTR grant funding as well as tapping into the entrepreneurial ecosystem within 麻豆原创 and the community.

麻豆原创 has one of the nation鈥檚 best innovation and entrepreneurial networks and is one of 36 universities nationwide, leading an I-Corps Site program. NSF has also established regional I-Corps Nodes, located in such innovation hotspots as Washington DC, New York City, Michigan, San Francisco and Boston.

A nationally certified teaching team oversees the teams and coaches them toward success. 麻豆原创鈥檚 certified teaching team consists of a mix of experienced entrepreneurs, investors and 麻豆原创 faculty including Thomas O鈥橬eal, Oscar Rodriguez, Michael O鈥橠onnell, Cameron Ford, Ivan Garibay and David Metcalf.聽 The entire team earned its certification via training and support by Jerry Engel. Engel, professor at Berkeley (University of California), is National Faculty Director of the NSF I-Corps program and co-creator of the Lean Launchpad methodology and curriculum.

For more information about 麻豆原创 I-Corps, please visit or contact Ivan Garibay at ivan.garibay@ucf.edu or via phone at 407-882-1163.

The first community affiliate to offer the acclaimed National Science Foundation鈥檚 (NSF) I-Corps Lean Startup program to high-growth entrepreneurs in Central Florida is Starter Studio.

Starter Studio was launched by Gregg Pollack, founder of Envy Labs and Code School, as a passion project to help tech startups in Orlando thrive. Starter Studio provides education, mentorship, legal and financial resources, networking opportunities, and the right culture to help innovative solutions grow.聽 Ninety-day accelerator classes are offered for aspiring tech startups.聽 Currently, the third class is preparing for graduation.

鈥淭he partnership with 麻豆原创 gives our Starters additional support to grow their new venture.聽 Participating in the 麻豆原创 I-Corps program opens up the opportunity to apply for the National NSF I-Corps program as well as SBIR/STTR grants,鈥� said Pollack, founder of Starter Studio.

As a Community Affiliate, organizations such as Starter Studio, will receive training and support from 麻豆原创 on delivering a tailored version of the Lean Startup education, as well as access to software and other tools for providing the various program elements.

鈥淲e are pleased to have Starter Studio as our first Community Affiliate.聽 This is the first step towards our goal of offering this proven program through a premier network of affiliates to university researchers and technology entrepreneurs throughout the region,鈥� said Ivan Garibay, program director for 麻豆原创 I-Corps.

Local area entrepreneurs selected for the program, receive I-Corps seed grant funds along with other legal and financial services offered by the Community Affiliate.聽 The I-Corps funds are applied to business, market, or early product prototype development.聽聽 麻豆原创 was awarded the NSF I-Corps grant in November 2014 for a three year timeframe.聽 Plans are in process to support the program through the network of affiliates beyond the period of the grant.

鈥淭his is an example of 麻豆原创 as 鈥楢merica鈥檚 Partnership University鈥�.聽 We have shown that contributing like this to the entrepreneur ecosystem in Central Florida benefits the entire economy through increased high-wage jobs and wealth creation鈥�, added Thomas O鈥橬eal, founder/director of 麻豆原创 I-Corps and the.

Meanwhile, Starter Studio is preparing for its on April 14th where each team from its accelerator class will showcase their work.

Teams include:

For more information about 麻豆原创 I-Corps, please visit or contact Ivan Garibay at ivan.garibay@ucf.edu or via phone at 407-882-1163.聽 Information about Starter Studio visit .

麻豆原创 Campus Event
Thursday, January 29th
Networking lunch: 12pm – 1:30pm
Live Oak Event Center
Who鈥檚 Invited: Students, Faculty and Community
Event is Free! 聽Seating is limited so register today!
Register at聽

Industry Mixer/Reception
Thursday, January 29th
5:30pm – 8pm
at Canvs (Exchange Building) 鈥� located at 101 S. Garland Ave., Orlando, 32801
Who鈥檚 Invited: Aspiring Entrepreneurs, Industry Mentors
Event is $15 per person聽
Register at聽

The Lean Startup movement promotes a non-traditional classroom approach to entrepreneurial learning.聽 This hand-on methodology requires students to propose and test their hypotheses in 鈥渞eal world鈥� scenarios.聽 Industry mentors review findings with students, helping them make appropriate adjustments to their innovation and/or launch plan in preparation for bringing their ideas to market. Lean Startup emphasizes engagement and experiential study.

鈥淲e consider it a great privilege to welcome Jerry Engel to Central Florida,鈥� says Ivan Garibay, Ph.D., Program Director for 麻豆原创 I-Corps.聽 鈥淗aving the co-founder and leader in the Lean Startup movement here to spend time with students, faculty, aspiring entrepreneurs and industry leaders is an incredible opportunity.聽 We look forward to learning from him as we develop and shape our own I-Corps program.鈥�

For more information or to RSVP for either event, please visit聽聽or call Ivan Garibay at ivan.garibay@ucf.edu or via phone at 407-882-1163.

麻豆原创 has been selected by the National Science foundation (NSF) to provide Florida鈥檚 first implementation of one of the agency鈥檚 flagship programs, an I-Corps Site. The I-Corps Site鈥檚 purpose is to foster innovation among faculty and students, promoting regional coordination and linkages in the innovation ecosystem, as well as develop a National Innovation Network.聽 The primary goal of NSF I-Corps is to provide University scientists and researchers the program, process, and resources to investigate and validate the commercialization of their science.聽 麻豆原创 has one of the nation鈥檚 best innovation and entrepreneurial networks and is one of 15 universities nationwide that is leading an I-Corps Site program.聽 The 麻豆原创 I-Corps program is administered by the university鈥檚 Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship (CIE), a department that consolidates and coordinates 麻豆原创鈥檚 major innovation and entrepreneurship support activities.

Jerry Engel is a leader in the Lean Startup movement. Collaborating closely with Steve Blank, chief architect of the Lean LaunchPad method, he helped develop the curriculum and co-authored the LaunchPad Educators Guide. He has taught the Lean LaunchPad at U.C. Berkeley and across the U.S. as National Faculty Director of the National Science Foundation鈥檚 I-Corps program, which has trained over 300 teams of the nation鈥檚 leading scientists. Internationally he is supervising programs in Asia and Europe. Additionally, as Faculty Director of a highly rated faculty development program in the U.S., conducted a Berkeley, Stanford and Columbia, he has trained several hundred faculty in the method. Professor Engel is a graduate of the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania and the 2010 recipient of the NCIIA – Olympus Corporation Lifetime of Educational Innovation Award.

Highlights of the October 11 workshop included prospects of using complexity sciences towards building computational models of nanoparticle, cell interactions by Ivan Garibay, director of the Complex Adaptive Systems Laboratory at the Institute and research information systems director at 麻豆原创鈥檚 Office of Research and Commercialization. Heiko Enderling of the Moffitt Cancer Center gave an introduction to agent-based models of cancer and Aniket Bhattacharya, associate professor of Physics at 麻豆原创 led a discussion about potential models for particle-cell interactions.

Laurene Tetard of 麻豆原创鈥檚 NanoScience Technology Center discussed nanoparticle/cell interactions and Ozlem Garibay from 麻豆原创鈥檚 Office of Research and Commercialization examined funding opportunities and high-performance computing resources.聽Qun Huo and Alexander Balaeff of 麻豆原创鈥檚 NanoScience Technology Center discussed next steps for broader awareness in nanoparticle functionalization and multi-scale simulations in cancer research.

鈥淲e view cancer as a complex biological system and recognize the potential in studying how nanoparticles and nano-robots could be engineered to affect these systems,鈥� Garibay said.

“The synergy at 麻豆原创 is a perfect platform to create a strong, innovative and interdisciplinary program to advance cancer research,鈥� Tetard said.

Founded in 1982 as a research unit of 麻豆原创, IST is an internationally recognized research institute that focuses on advancing human-centered modeling and simulation technology and increasing our understanding聽of simulation’s聽role in training and education. The institute in 2012 celebrated 30 years of M&S research achievement.