2024 Newsletter

December 11, 2024

Dear CORE Community,

As we close out 2024, we want to extend our heartfelt gratitude to our incredible community for making this year so impactful. From hosting the CORE Summit featuring keynote speaker Shefali Mehta (pictured center), to welcoming the 2024 cohort of CORE Fellows, to hosting innovation workshops and learning with our talented undergraduate students, we have achieved so much together. Thank you for your dedication and collaboration as we continue to tackle society’s grand challenges through convergence research. Wishing you all a joyful holiday season and a wonderful start to the new year!

With gratitude,

Ilkay Altintas, CICORE Division Director, San Diego Supercomputer Center (SDSC)

Zaira Razu, CORE Institute Director, SDSC

Partner with the CORE Institute

The CORE Institute is a flagship initiative of the Cyberinfrastructure and Convergence Research (CICORE) Division of the San Diego Supercomputer Center at the School of Computing, Information and Data Science at UC San Diego. The CICORE Division provides expertise in data science, AI, and advanced computing to partnerships and projects focused on achieving scientific and societal impact. 

The CORE Institute was launched in 2022 with support from the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) Convergence Accelerator as an initiative to catalyze an impact network of students, researchers, practitioners, industry leaders and public policy professionals committed to engaging in research that is driven by societal problems and requires deep integration across disciplines and sectors to create solutions. 

CORE Institute workshops and training programs provide participants with foundational experience to position them for impact throughout their careers on the most challenging issues of our time. Contact coreinstitute@ucsd.edu to partner with us.

CORE Fellows

This year's CORE Fellows comprise a diverse and dynamic group of professionals from a variety of disciplines, including supply chain management, climate and community planning, nutrition science, machine learning, agricultural sustainability, and data management. Their expertise spans academia, public policy, industry, and non-profit sectors, with an emphasis on sustainable food systems, climate resilience, equitable community development, and advanced data technologies.

In May, the CORE Academy brought together our fellows, mentors and leaders (pictured above) for a convergence research innovation curriculum that provided tools to collaborate effectively and drive impactful change in their respective fields. Learn more about our 2024 CORE Fellows here.

Breakout sessions with 2024 CORE Fellows centered on ideating solutions to use-inspired research problems in the food systems space.

CORE Fellows (L-R) Francois Scharffe, Tera Fazzino, Felicia Chiang, and Jake Rhodes present at a CORE Academy panel discussion.

CORE Summit 2024: Leveraging Artificial Intelligence (AI) for Sustainable Food Systems

During this year's CORE Summit, researchers and practitioners from multiple disciplines and sectors convened to discuss the challenges and opportunities in creating more sustainable regional food systems. 

Keynote speaker Shefali Mehta (pictured above) discussed the intersections of AI, emerging technologies, holistic wellness, and environmental sustainability with summit attendees. This two-day event was organized by the CORE Institute in collaboration with the CORE Fellows. Learn more about the CORE Summit here.

At the CORE Summit’s workshop on “Turning Food Waste into Sustainable Plastics,” participants discussed the circular economy, sustainability, and AI's potential to optimize R&D for biomaterials.

Haley Kawar co-chaired the "Localizing the Food System" workshop, discussing connections between indigenous cultures, foods, and the farm-to-table movement. Kawar’s homemade baklava symbolized the fusion of ancient traditions and recipes with ancestral lands across the globe.

CORE4 Workshops

The CORE4 Workshops follow a comprehensive innovation framework to address complex societal problems by focusing on the CORE4 Building Blocks: cutting-edge science and engineering, data and AI, advanced digital infrastructure, and integrated workflows to drive innovation.

This year we hosted workshops with The VINE, a University of California Agriculture and Natural Resources (UCANR) initiative focused on fostering innovation and entrepreneurship in agriculture and natural resources; the Eastern Innovation Landscape Network, which connects the research community with fire planning and management decision-makers; the NSF Convergence Accelerator cohort focused on food and nutrition security; and the University of California Disaster Resilience Network (UCDRN).

Junior CORE Fellows

(L-R) Angelina Lopez, student mentor at the UC San Diego Bioregional Center for Sustainability Science, Planning and Design, and CORE Junior Fellows Alan Gonzalez, Sarah Thompson, Avenlea Mcgraw, and Caren Aguirre present their research on the AGROLINK initiative, which leverages data and AI for sustainable regional food systems.

The CORE Institute partnered with UC San Diego’s Bioregional Center for Sustainability Science, Planning and Design to recruit and train a team of undergraduate students on the principles of convergence research applied to sustainable food systems. The team of students worked on a Local Food Procurement Action Handbook to leverage UC San Diego’s institutional purchasing power to support local farms and ensure access to sustainable foods for the student community. 

This project led to the creation of a Collaborative Change Framework, which outlined current barriers to sustainable food procurement and proposed solutions such as a student educational campaign to highlight local food systems and partnerships with farms that have the capacity to supply institutions. For more information, visit the ArcGIS StoryMap here.

Experiential Learning

The CORE Institute mentored the ENLACE Summer Research Program interns at WIFIRE Lab, helping them connect their scientific work to real-world solutions for wildfire mitigation. We also partnered with the multi-institutional team of the NSF-funded NOURISH project and the UC San Diego Bioregional Center for Sustainability Science, Planning and Design, to develop a training curriculum for UC San Diego urban planning students. 

We are collaboratively teaching this curriculum as guest lecturers over the course of three quarters with a total of 200+ students. The training has a strong emphasis on experiential learning – students will work on a real-world project (NOURISH) and collect data in San Diego to map out variables related to food deserts that are not currently available on existing data sources. 

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