Ed Lazowska

eScience – the techniques and technologies of data-intensive discovery

From 2008-17 I served as the Founding Director of the University of Washington eScience Institute, where I remain a Senior Data Science Fellow. The goal of the eScience Institute is to advance the techniques and technologies of data-intensive discovery, and to diffuse them across the campus. Technical foci of the eScience Institute include data management, data visualization, machine learning, cloud computing, and others. Our support comes from the University of Washington, the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, the Washington Research Foundation, the National Science Foundation, Microsoft, Google, Amazon, and others; in November 2013 UW, UC Berkeley, and NYU became partners in a five-year, $37.8 million award from the Moore and Sloan Foundations whose goal is to dramatically accelerate the growth of data-intensive discovery in a broad range of fields.

Data architecture for the Ocean Observatories Initiative

I am an Adjunct Professor in the University of Washington's world-renowned School of Oceanography. I have participated in various aspects of the NSF Ocean Observatories Initiative, which deployed 1,000 km of fiber optic cable equipped with chemical, physical, biological, and optical instrument on the seafloor on the Juan de Fuca plate with the goal of transforming aspects of oceanography from an expeditionary to an observatory science. My late friend Jim Gray was an active participant in the early stages of this effort. My Ph.D. student Keith Grochow built a novel visualization system that played a role in the effort.

CloudBank: Managed Services to Simplify Cloud Access for Computer Science Research and Education

I am the University of Washington Co-PI of CloudBank, an NSF-funded initiative of UW, UC Berkeley, and UC San Diego to establish a cloud access entity to help the computer science community access and use public clouds for research and education by delivering a set of managed services designed to simplify access. Driven by the profound potential of the public cloud and the associated complexity in using it, CloudBank will serve as an integrated service provider to the research community through a comprehensive set of user-facing and business operations functions.

The West Big Data Innovation Hub

I am the University of Washington Co-PI of the West Big Data Innovation Hub, an NSF-funded initiative of UW, UC Berkeley, and UC San Diego whose mission is to build and strengthen partnerships across industry, academia, nonprofits, and government to address societal and scientific challenges, spur economic development, and foster a national big data ecosystem. Our projects, events, activities, and initiatives span priority thematic areas as well as cross-cutting areas.

The Computing Community Consortium

I served from 2007-13 as Founding Chair of the Computing Community Consortium, an NSF-funded organization whose objective is to catalyze and empower the computing research community to pursue audacious, high-impact research. In relation to this, I served as co-chair (with David E. Shaw) of the Working Group of the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST) to review the Federal Networking and Information Technology Research and Development (NITRD) Program. I maintain a strong interest in the intersection of information technology and public policy, and currently serve as a member of the National Academies Committee on Science, Engineering, Medicine, and Public Policy (COSEMPUP) as a representative of the Council of the National Academy of Engineering.

Computer Systems and Networking

I participate in various activities of the Allen School's computer systems and networking research group. My phenomenal systems students have included Hank Levy (Digital Equipment Corp. -> University of Washington), John Bennett (Rice University -> University of Colorado), Dave Wagner (University of Colorado -> Principia Consulting -> Google), Brian Bershad (Carnegie Mellon University -> University of Washington -> Google -> retired), Yi-Bing Lin (Bell Communications Research -> National Chiao Tung University), Mark Squillante (IBM Research), Tom Anderson (UC Berkeley -> University of Washington), Cliff Neuman (USC Information Sciences Institute), Ed Felten (Princeton University), Chandu Thekkath (DEC Systems Research Center -> Microsoft Research -> Google), Rob Bedichek (Transmeta -> AMD -> Apple -> Intel), Misha Rabinovich (AT&T Research -> Case Western Reserve University), Jeff Chase (Duke University), Dylan McNamee (Oregon Graduate Institute -> Galois -> Reed College), Brian Pinkerton (A9 -> Chan Zuckerberg Initiative -> Apple), Tapan Parikh (UC Berkeley -> Cornell Tech NYC), Sujay Parekh (IBM Research -> Bloomberg LP), Keith Grochow (National ICT Australia Ltd. -> consultant), and Shrainik Jain (Snowflake).