NITRD MOURNS THE LOSS OF DR. LUCY NOWELL

It is with deep sadness that we share the news of the passing of Lucy Nowell on June 14, 2020 (for more information, please see her obituary). Lucy was a key contributor to NITRD, as a former co-chair to the High End Computing Interagency Working Group, an alternate representative for the NITRD Subcommittee, and an active participant to two other IWGs - Big Data and Human Computer Interaction and Information Management.

She made important contributions to the field of computer science during her work at NSF and DOE. She was a Chief/Staff Scientist at the U.S. Pacific Northwest National Laboratory and progressed to a Program Director at NSF, where she managed research for supercomputing systems in the Office of Cyberinfrastructure. Following NSF, Lucy continued to work on supercomputing systems at the DOE’s Office of Advanced Scientific Computing Research until she retired in 2018. Lucy had a dynamic career path, in that she began in theatre arts, but later in life shifted her focus and completed her Ph.D. in computer science at Virginia Tech. Please take a look at Lucy’s accomplishments, which were noted in her interview on the Virginia Tech’s College of Engineering alumni webpage.

We at NITRD offer our condolences to Lucy's family.

NITRD Newsletter - May 2020

View Full Text:  NITRD-Newsletter-052020.pdf

This revamped newsletter includes many interesting areas for you to explore:

• Snippets: Well, they are exactly that, snippets (with links) to fascinating agency projects in networking and information technology.
• Topic of the Day: This month we are examining wireless spectrum, 5G, and related technologies, but first we explain to our readers in the Topic of the Day section what exactly is 5G and importantly, how it will benefit the American public.
• Agency Corner: For our first revised newsletter, we chose DARPA to highlight in our Agency Corner section because they have brought to fruition many of the technologies that we associate with our Topic of the Day, wireless spectrum and communications.
• Innovation through NITRD: We also introduce our readers to NITRD’s Wireless Spectrum Research and Development Interagency Working Group who coordinates Federal agency wireless spectrum activities.
• Event Highlights: We highlight here two workshops recently held on this important and timely topic.
• NITRD Staff: Lastly and certainly not least, we acquaint our readers with three NITRD staff members and a recent intern. NITRD strongly supports STEM education and workforce development in the information technology fields and so we are proud to draw attention to their accomplishments at NITRD.

We invite you to take a look at this newly revised newsletter to see the transformative innovations that have found an important place in the American life and challenge you to Discover NITRD Innovations for You!

View Full Text:  NITRD-Newsletter-052020.pdf

Announcement: Tagging website information related to COVID-19

To increase the online visibility of important COVID-19 information, Federal Chief Information Officers have been directed to incorporate the new Schema.org vocabulary for tagging websites that contain information about COVID-19 prevention measures, disease spread statistics, etc. These new tags are available in Schema.org Version 7.0, released March 17, 2020 (http://blog.schema.org/2020/03/schema-for-coronavirus-special.html).

In addition to the direction to Federal Chief Information Officers, state and local government agencies as well as non-profit and private sector organization are encouraged to utilize these tags for publishing and disseminating information related to COVID-19.

Follow this link for instructions to add structured data to COVID-19 announcements, with examples.

Also, the National Science Foundation-funded projects seeking to establish an Open Knowledge Network are actively working on creating enhanced knowledge graphs to handle additional critical information that is being published on a variety of sites, including local, county, and state governments; hospitals; and other organizations. This includes information on local incidence rates, hospital admission rates, and more. Tagging these data appropriately will enable effective use by downstream analytics and visualization applications that would benefit the public. Those interested in contributing to this effort should contact COVID19-OKN@nitrd.gov.

There is also an effort underway to develop tags for the scientific information related to the coronavirus, to enable faster discovery and use/re-use of that information. That work is being pursued by the Open Knowledge Network along with Department of Energy and National Institutes of Health, and others. Those interested in contributing to that effort should contact COVID19-Science@nitrd.gov.

National Women's History Month: Women of the NITRD National Coordination Office

As National Women's History Month enters its final week, the National Coordination Office (NCO) acknowledges the women of the Perspecta Team whose talent, expertise, and dedication make the success of the Networking and Information R&D (NITRD) program possible. Whether it is facilitating meetings, preparing reports, writing documents, or coordinating with our Federal Agency members or the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, this group of women exemplify the core values that make the NCO a catalyst for the NITRD community... READ MORE