Lecture Series at RIT Highlights New “Cyberinfrastructure” Research Center

On the popular science fiction television show Star Trek: The Next Generation, the brain of Lt. Commander Data was made up of artificial neural networks. Artificial neural networks are not light years away, but a hot button issue right now.

It will be the topic of the first lecture series for Rochester Institute of Technology's newly created “cyberinfrastructure” research center. Earlier this month, the B. Thomas Golisano College of Computing and Information Sciences unveiled the Center for Advancing the Study of Cyberinfrastructure (CASCI).

Dr. Bryant York, professor of computer science at Portland State University will give a lecture on Tuesday, Sept. 28, from 3 to 4 p.m. in the Golisano College Auditorium.

York's presentation, Clifford Neural Networks and Chaotic Time Series, examines neural networks. Neural networks attempt to model the structure of natural brains in recognizing patterns, such as text images. York will share some of his novel mathematical techniques for building neural networks. Neural networks have been an important issue within the computer discipline for the past 20 years.

York has also served as program officer at the National Science Foundation and was a research staff member at the IBM San Jose Research Labs.

Cyberinfrastructure, as defined by the National Science Foundation, describes the global information technology environments in which the highest level of computing tools are available to researchers and professionals in all disciplines.

CASCI aims to foster interdisciplinary research, using state-of-the-art computing to make studies in engineering and scientific fields, including social sciences and the humanities, more productive.

Several of RIT's eight colleges will be participating in CASCI research. Research teams will be made up of faculty and students from the Golisano College and the other participating colleges. They will create cyber tools and environments to advance scientific discovery and product development.

RIT's B. Thomas Golisano College of Computing and Information Sciences is the largest comprehensive computing college in the nation, offering undergraduate and graduate programs in computer science and information technology and an undergraduate program in software engineering.