Spatiotemporal Thinking, Computing and Application

Everything happens at some place, some time. Through collaboration among George Mason University, University of California at Santa Barbara, and Harvard University, this project builds national spatiotemporal capacity and advances education and research. This project aims to acquire superior knowledge of spatiotemporal principles, build computational infrastructure capable of processing big spatiotemporal data efficiently, develop insights on how to apply these principles and capabilities to solve real-world problems, and implement educational programs with state-of-the-art spatiotemporal curricula in order to understand our world better, to respond to regional and global emergencies in a timely way, and to prepare the next generation's workforce. As a center, the three universities will collaborate with industry, government agencies, and other organizations to form a leading national and international consortium for building a comprehensive infrastructure base for spatiotemporal thinking, computing, and application; conducting research to develop spatiotemporal thinking and its methodologies; developing new spatiotemporal technologies, solutions, datasets, tools, and software that will be integrated with existing and future industry products and services; building demonstrative applications for government agencies and organizations to improve the impact and reach of this work; and formulating new educational methodologies and materials to advance human knowledge for the public. The center will be a platform for academia, industry, and agencies to collaborate to achieve fundamental and discipline-wide results. Members from academia will get unique opportunities to interact with industry and agencies to understand real world problems and research needs. Industry members will be able to access the research results and turn them into future products and services to improve their competitiveness. Agencies will be able to apply the research results, incorporating them into their operations for better efficiency. The products, services, and operations will serve thousands to millions of end users, from the public and K-16 to professionals. Research results will be presented in international conferences or symposiums; published in Geographic Information System (GIS) journals or books; shared as code packages in GitHub (https://github.com/cga-harvard), posted on the center website (https://www.stcenter.net/), and circulated as center published newsletters, posters or flyers. Platforms developed by this project will be publicly accessible (as approved by the sponsoring board members).This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria., We live in a four dimensional world with three spatial dimensions and one temporal dimension. Understanding the nature of the spatiotemporal dimensions integratively will help us better prepare for challenges facing us in the 21st century and beyond: a) responding to climate change with better climate simulations, b) mitigating asteroids' impact to our home planet like the dinosaur-killer, c) resolving political disputations with spatiotemporal understanding of the culture, boundaries, history, and future of relevant nations, and d) equipping our future leaders with spatiotemporal thinking capability and decision support tools. Following the success of Phase I spatiotemporal Industry-University Cooperative Research Center (IUCRC) investigation as a collaboration among George Mason, Harvard, and the University of California-Santa Barbara, the second phase of the center will move forward with the mission to 1) build a national and international spatiotemporal infrastructure; 2) develop, with industry and agency members, new spatiotemporal technologies, solutions, tools, and software that will be easily integrated with existing and future industry products and services; 3) improve human intelligence by developing a set of spatiotemporal thinking methodologies built into K-16 curriculum; and 4) improving human capabilities in responding to grand scientific and engineering challenges. Outreach will be conducted to maximize the broader impacts: 1) collaborating closely with more than four active members each year to develop relevant methodologies and technologies; 2) disseminating research results to industry and government agency members and through publications for adoption and broader impacts. 3) working with leading associations to broadcast the research results and recruit new members; 4) developing new course material and curriculum within existing degree programs and broadcast for wider adoption; 5) continuing our diverse traditions to include minorities and other underrepresented groups in this STEM field; 6) making all results open source to benefit relevant domains nationally and internationally. The center will post all information on an official website (https://www.stcenter.net/) and two content management portals accessible through the official website. A project management website will be utilized to share all project reports, working papers, presentations, posters, and publications. The data and research results produced will be integrated into the center's operational community cloud (http://sites.cloud.gmu.edu/sthcp/index.php) to be maintained as a sustainable resource for the center for long term sustainability. Source code developed in the center will be open to the public using github.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.