Data/Information Science and Systems

Information is a pervasive strand that runs through the fabric of our modern society; it is ubiquitous in every facet of our lives, from communication and multimedia systems to health, economics, commerce, policy, and scientific exploration and discovery. Research under this broadly-defined theme spans all aspects of scientific and technological innovations aimed at advancing information utilization. It encompasses information representation, storage, transmission, processing, learning, and understanding.

This research theme resides at the nexus of the physical world and computation—where fundamental sciences of systems, networks, and communications enable the design of technologies and algorithms that extract information from large amounts of unstructured data produced by information-generating sensors and systems, discover patterns, and make predictions and critical decisions, while guaranteeing reliability and robustness, and preserving security and privacy. Research within this theme draws on foundational areas of communication and information theory, system theory and signal processing, network science and theory, probability theory, optimization theory, statistical inference and decision theory, game theory, and machine learning to tackle problems in contemporary and emerging applications in socio-technical systems and physical and life sciences.