The Future of Astrophysical Data Infrastructure
3rd Floor Conference Room/3-Simons Foundation
160 5th Avenue
The Future of Astrophysical Data Infrastructure
Intro
The Center for Computational Astrophysics (CCA) at the Flatiron Institute, in collaboration with the National Science Foundation, is organizing a Future of Astrophysical Data Infrastructure Workshop. The goal of this 4 day workshop is to identify and prioritize strategies and options for implementing recommendations from the Astro2020 decadal survey relating to ground-based astrophysical data. The workshop will take place February 13–16, 2023 at the Flatiron Institute in New York City. The CCA invites US and international members of the astronomy community to attend the workshop and contribute to its final product, a publicly-available report with findings for the community and for the funding agencies.
Rationale
The Astro2020 decadal survey provided an analysis and overview of the landscape for data management for ground-based observatories, noting that “Progress [in creating effective data archives] will come from an end-to-end approach that considers the entire flow of data from the instrument, to the archive, to analysis and publication.” and that “The NSF and stakeholders should develop a plan to address how to design, build, deploy, and sustain pipelines for producing science-ready data across all general-purpose ground-based observatories.” Developing a successful implementation plan to address the recommendations around data management will require collaboration and buy-in from the community and the primary stakeholders, and coordination among the relevant funding agencies.
This workshop is focused on identifying technical solutions, implementation options, a long term vision, and a tentative roadmap to address the recommendations highlighted above. We encourage participants to think big and be ambitious. While contributions related to individual science cases and highlights of the capabilities of existing data centers might be useful in informing the discussion, they are not the main focus of this meeting.
Meeting recordings linked here.
Organizing Committee
Adrian Price-Whelan
Luca Rizzi
Kelle Cruz
Julianne Dalcanton
John O’Meara
Dara Norman
Wil O'Mullane
Roopesh Ojha
Beth Willman
Meeting participation
Applications to participate in the workshop are open to all, but in person attendance and participation in discussion sessions will be limited to ~40 participants, selected by the SOC to span a broad spectrum of expertise and a diverse set of perspectives. Plenary presentations will be live streamed for anyone to watch, but full remote participation (i.e. in discussion sessions) is possible and will be considered on a case-by-case basis.
Goal of the workshop
The astronomical community has expressed various recommendations related to data management (e.g.: the decadal survey as mentioned and https://arxiv.org/abs/1905.05116.) These recognise the need for an end to end strategy for astronomical data.
The goals of the workshop are:
(1) Taking into account those recommendations, formulate them into a roadmap for the development of a national end-to-end strategy for a data infrastructure for astronomy and the workforce to deliver it.
(2) Produce a public report including a prioritized list of requirements for private and public funding agencies advisory committees, and
(3) identify additional questions to address in order to deliver the roadmap.
The workshop should focus on technical solutions and implementation options, and discuss a long term vision for the implementation of the recommendations of the decadal review supported by the scientific needs of the community and by the shared expertise in the field.
In-person Participants:
Adam Bolton
Alberto Accomazzi
August Muench
Ben Rusholme
Bryan Field
Bryan Miller
Curtis McCully
David Spergel
Debra Fischer
Demitri Muna
Erik Tollerud
Felix Stoehr
Frossie Economou
Gautham Narayan
Gregory Dubois-Felsman
Ignacio Toledo
JJ Kavelaars
John Swinbank
Julian Borrill
Julie Mcenery
Kathleen Labrie
Kerk Kee
Kim Gillies
Knut Olsen
Martin Still
Lily Zhao
Mario Juric
Matthew Turk
Michael Blanton
Rafael Martínez-Galarza
Robert Nikutta
Stephen Bailey
Tess Jaffe
Vandana Desai
William Vacca
James D Neill
Remote Participants:
Adam Burgasser
Angela Murillo
Anna L.H. Hughes
Benjamin Weaver
Benjamin Weiner
Christopher Moriarty
Dominic Benford
Felix Stoehr
Henry Ferguson
Ilaria Caiazzo
Jaime Forero-Romero
James Turner
Janet Evans
Jason Weiss
Jeff Kern
Joaquin Vieira
Joseph Hennawi
Kyle Westfall
Mark Lacy
Matthew Graham
Megan Ansdell
Nathaniel Starkman
Preshanth jagannathan
Robert Seaman
Steven Berukoff
Steven Gwyn
Tim Jenness
COVID Policy: By making entry to our buildings all staff, vendors and guests will implicitly attest to being symptom/COVID free. Vaccination status will no longer be validated as a condition of entry. However, all staff and affiliates are strongly encouraged to remain up to date with their vaccination boosters, according to their individual eligibility.
Age Restriction: All employees, visitors, event attendees and vendors are required to be above the age of eighteen for entry into our building(s). Photo ID with birthdate will be required by security upon arrival to our building. For nursing mothers, please reach out to an admin to arrange an exception.
