TRIADS has announced its newest crop of seed grant recipients, with eight teams of researchers receiving funding.

Featuring faculty from four different WashU schools (Arts & Sciences, Brown School, McKelvey School of Engineering, and the School of Medicine), these projects leverage data science to address pressing societal issues. Each research team includes faculty representing multiple academic disciplines, providing the knowledge base to view problems and their potential solutions from many different angles.

TRIADS Coffee Hours

TRIADS is pleased to announce its upcoming TRIADS Coffee Hours. Hosted every Wednesday from 2-3 p.m. in the TRIADS workspace (420 Jolley Hall), these informal gatherings will each focus on a particular topic of data science research. 

Coffee, tea, and snacks will be provided at the coffee hours.

No reservation is required, and participants are always welcome to bring a friend.

TRIADS Training Series

The TRIADS Training Series offers February courses that focus on programming in Python and R. These classes are perfect for WashU faculty, graduate students, and staff looking to increase their fluency in these popular programming languages.

Learn more and RSVP below:

Digital Humanities is a multi-disciplinary field that combines digital tools and computational methodologies with humanistic inquiry.

Digital Humanities Working Group: Nathan Dize
Friday, February 28
11 a.m.
Olin Library, Room 142

For the second Digital Humanities Working Group session of Spring 2025, Prof. Nathan Dize (Romance Languages and Literatures) will give a presentation titled:

"More than an Art Column: Developing Open Educational Resources in Caribbean Studies through Data"

Lunch will be provided.

Learn more and RSVP here.

Digital Humanities Fridays

On Fridays, the community of Digital Humanities practitioners at WashU comes together in three ways: a working group, a reading group, and a drop-in hour for faculty and students working on related projects.

View the full Digital Humanities Fridays schedule for Spring 2025 to get involved.

Collecting events produced outside TRIADS that relate to data science.

Love Data Week 2025

February 10 – 14

A week of presentations and workshops around all things data, presented by Bernard Becker Medical Library, Washington University Libraries, Office of the Provost, Digital Intelligence & Innovation (DI2) Accelerator and the Institute for Informatics, Data Science & Biostatistics (I2DB).

R vs. Python for Data Analytics: A Comparative Walkthrough
Presented by: R-Ladies St. Louis

Saturday, February 8, 10 a.m. – Noon
Goldfarb Hall 132

This workshop will introduce R users to the Python ecosystem for everyday data analysis tasks. We'll explore core Python concepts and libraries, comparing them to familiar R tools. You'll learn how to perform common data analysis operations in Python, such as data manipulation, exploratory data analysis (EDA), and data visualization. This hands-on session will provide you with a solid foundation to start using Python for your routine data analysis needs, expanding your analytical toolkit.

If you are interested in any of the grant opportunities below, please reach out to Dr. Bhavna Hirani, Senior Research Development Associate, for assistance.

MHSRS: Military Health System Research Symposium
Abstracts Due: February 16, 2025

The MHSRS is the Department of Defense's premier scientific research meeting. It provides a collaborative environment for military medical care providers with deployment experience, DoD scientists, academia, and industry to meet and exchange information on the unique medical needs of the Warfighter. Topics include clinical decision support/data analytics and psychological health.

NIH: D-START: Data Science Track Award for Research Transition
Application Due Dates: February 16 and June 16, 2025

This notice of funding opportunity (NOFO) seeks to support investigators interested in applying cutting-edge data science techniques to address timely and challenging research questions related to substance use and/or substance use disorder (SUD) in all areas of research supported by the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA). This NOFO requests Small Research Grant (R03) applications to support research projects that can be carried out in a short period of time with limited resources.  

NSF: Smart and Connected Communities (S&CC)
Preliminary Proposal Due Dates: February 20 and September 8, 2025

Communities are unique and constantly evolving as shifts in population size, demographics, economic opportunity, technology, built and natural environments, and available services impact overall community culture, needs, and opportunities. The goal of this solicitation is to accelerate the creation of the scientific and engineering foundations that underpin novel intelligent technologies, concepts, and solutions that address major societal challenges and will bring about new levels of economic opportunity and growth, safety and security, human and environmental health and wellness, and improve overall quality of life for people.

NSF: Collaborations in Artificial Intelligence and Geosciences (CAIG)
Proposal Deadlines: April 2, 2025 and February 4, 2026

The NSF Directorate for Geosciences (GEO), in partnership with the Directorate for Computer and Information Science and Engineering (CISE) and the Directorate for Mathematical and Physical Sciences (MPS), seeks to address grand challenge problems in the geosciences through innovations in artificial intelligence (AI) methods.

NSF: Strengthening American Infrastructure (SAI)
Proposal Deadlines: April 17, 2025 and March 6, 2026

Strengthening American Infrastructure (SAI) is an NSF program seeking to stimulate human-centered, use-inspired, fundamental and potentially transformative research aimed at strengthening America’s infrastructure. Effective infrastructure provides a strong foundation for socioeconomic vitality and broad improvement in quality of life. SAI focuses on how fundamental knowledge about human reasoning and decision-making, governance, and social and cultural processes enables the building and maintenance of effective infrastructure that improves lives and society and builds on advances in technology and engineering. Successful projects will represent a convergence of expertise in one or more social, behavioral or economic sciences, deeply integrated with other disciplines to support substantial and potentially pathbreaking fundamental research applied to strengthening a specific focal infrastructure.

Here and Next Seed Grants

The Research Development Office is continuing its support of Research Excellence through the Research Seed Grant program. There are three Core Grant Programs: Spark Funding Grant, Ignite Grant, and the Transcend Initiative Grant. In addition to these grants, RDO is partnering with other Here and Next units to run other exciting seed funding opportunities with interdisciplinary, university-wide initiatives. 

You can find more info about them in their most recent newsletter here. You can direct questions about these programs to researchseedfunding@wustl.edu.

Do you have feedback or want to submit an item for a future newsletter? Let us know at triads@wustl.edu.