W. Huang awarded NSF grant for cyber training curriculum for CWE sustainability

Climate, Water and Environment (CWE) sustainability is critical for maintaining the overall well-being of the United States and the world. Addressing the current challenges in CWE sustainability requires knowledge and skills of big data analytics, simulations, high-performance computing, and advanced cyberinfrastructures.

Funded by a $847,844 grant from the National Science Foundation, Wanju Huang, clinical assistant professor in the College of Education, and fellow Purdue researchers will create a cyber training curriculum for CWE sustainability.

The project will address a gap between training opportunities on integrating and working with data from different CWE sources by creating a cyber training curriculum that will incorporate rapidly developing technology and community best practices. It will provide cyber training to students, trainers and working professionals using publicly available data, simulation tools, and computing resources.

“The goal of the project is to create a new generation of scientists and engineers capable of doing Findable Accessible Interoperable and Reusable (FAIR) open science research in the CWE domains,” Huang said. “The team will design and develop a series of learning modules and disseminate the resources through an open and scalable cyber training platform. I hope to assist the team in accomplishing the goals by providing my learning design, instructional technology, online teaching, and program assessment expertise.”

Huang hopes this multidisciplinary collaboration will encourage more collaborative opportunities between the College of Education and other colleges and help Learning Design and Technology students see the practice of the field from a broader perspective.

The new curriculum will offer training at foundation, expert, and developer levels using a flexible modular approach. Students can access it through an open, scalable online platform which will disseminate not only the curriculum itself but also access to tools and resources. Students from five universities, three community colleges and one high school will participate.

The multi-disciplinary team includes:

Venkatesh Merwade (PI), professor of civil engineering, Purdue College of Engineering

Wanju Huang (Co-PI), clinical assistant professor of learning design and technology, Purdue College of Education

Xiaohui Carol Song (Co-PI), chief scientist of research computing, Information Technology at Purdue

Jacob Hosen (Co-PI), assistant professor of Internet-of-Things and Ecological Analytics, Department of Forestry and Natural resources, Purdue College of Agriculture

This project is co-funded by a collaboration between the Directorate for Geosciences and Office of Advanced Cyberinfrastructure to support AI/ML and open science activities in the geosciences.

Source: Wanju Huang, wanjuhuang@purdue.edu

NSF Award Abstract # 2230092