 Experience Article in EdgeDiscovery Magazine
Through EdgeDiscovery, Edge has made a significant commitment to supporting the research community. We are working diligently to connect with the researchers across the region to learn about the research projects, identify how we can support the requirements of the projects, and potential collaboration opportunities among researchers. An important part of this process has been raising awareness and enabling access to the available local, regional, and national resources. Our goal is to make sure that we provide value to our members leveraging the core competencies of EdgeDiscovery, including high performance network connectivity, access to advanced computing resources and expertise, and advancing big-data education and discovery especially in support of data-intensive data science programs.
We could not be more grateful to our members, allies, and partners, who are working tirelessly with us to improve both on-premise and cloud access to advanced computing capability and services through innovation and leadership, especially for the smaller, less-resourced institutions.
We have been thinking extensively about the impact of the pandemic on research. There have been so many COVID-19 challenges, yet a silver lining has been seeing the research and collaborations emerge at the front of this virus; finding new medications to treat the virus, discovering potential vaccines, innovating new testing methodologies, setting guidelines for reducing the spread of the virus, and so much more. The pandemic has required us to flex our leadership muscle fast and effectively by developing clear priorities, staying in close contact with our members, and managing our resources to accomplish our goals.
From a priority perspective, commitment to supporting research and discovery has never been more important. We feel it is imperative to stay in closer contact with our membership and to increase our services for the research community. We have been prioritizing regular communications with VPRs and CIOs of our member institutions through listening tour conversations and regular participation in local, regional, and national research communities.
As a result of integrating with the broader research community, we have established the EdgeDiscovery Advisory Council, comprised of distinguished experts from the research and education community representing the sectors that Edge serves, and will be instrumental in guiding the strategic direction for EdgeDiscovery and serving as ambassadors to connecting EdgeDiscovery to a greater constituency. The EdgeXchange Research community was launched as part of the effort to create a community among the researchers and research computing professionals.
We invite you to join us at the EdgeCon 2021 January 6-8. The research track at EdgeCon 2021 and the EdgeDiscovery magazine serve as a way for us to share with the broader community the great work that the research community is doing.
– Forough Ghahramani, EdD
Associate Vice President for Research, Innovation, and Sponsored Programs, Edge
