URI_Research_Magazine_Momentum_Spring_2018_Melissa-McCarthy

Joan Peckham Professor, Computer Science and Statistics Coordinator, URI Big Data Collaborative

As part of her transition to the Big Data Collaborative, Peckham reports to the Dean of University Libraries Karim Boughida. The teamwork of the collaborative includes faculty and students from all of the URI colleges. The URI Library now includes DataSpark, a makerspace, and a new Artificial Intelligence Laboratory. In these spaces students can create and explore with machine learning, visualization, 3D printers, and the Internet of Things, among other 21st century technologies. A complementary Design Thinking laboratory is now being planned. Additionally, new data and technology librarians are working to provide research, training, consulting, and outreach services. “The library is transforming itself for the future,” Peckham explains. “It’s not just STEM majors who need to know this stuff, students across the University need these modern skills.” Philosophy Professor Cheryl Foster, also a member of the University’s AI initiative, believes that it is imperative to study data from a variety of viewpoints, including those of ethics and logic.

“I would argue that in order to be a good citizen and informed voter, people need to make sense of data,” Foster says, stressing the importance of understanding data while participating in democracy. “Our job at the University is to teach people how to think,” Peckham says. “This is really interesting because it has to do with all of us.”

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Data visualization from the URI Maker Space.

Spring | 2018 Page 27