Category: Incubator Project

• Deep Learning to Uncover Watershed Specific Characteristics in Salmon Otolith Patterns to Aid in Management of Pacific Salmon

  

  Project Lead: Ben Makhlouf, UW Aquatic and Fisheries Sciences Data Science Lead: Valentina Staneva Pacific salmon in western Alaska support a multi-million-dollar commercial fishing industry and are a vital source of subsistence for upstream communities. In recent years, catastrophic declines in Chinook and Chum salmon populations have severely impacted subsistence opportunities, causing significant hardship across the region.…

• Detection of Early Warning Signals regarding Safety Concerns of Implantable Medical Devices

  

  Project Lead: Aparna Ramanathan, UW Medicine Data Science Lead: June Yang, Spencer Wood Currently in the United States, postmarket surveillance of medical device safety is conducted via the Manufacturer and User Facility and Device Experience (MAUDE) database.  MAUDE is targeted at device manufacturers and does not engage patient or provider users of new medical devices; this lack…

• Global High-Resolution Modeling: A New Lens on the Southern Ocean

  

  Project Lead: Mira Berdahl, UW Earth and Space Sciences Data Science Lead: Scott Henderson Modern Antarctic ice loss is largely driven by warm, dense circumpolar deep water (CDW), which reaches the ice sheet margin and causes ice to melt.  Antarctic mass loss has significant implications for global sea level rise, but the mechanisms that transport CDW to…

• Automated assessment of butterfly thermoregulatory traits from specimen images

  

  Project Lead: Laura Buckley, UW Biology Data Science Lead: Vaughn Iverson Heterogenous responses to climate change highlight the need to identify the underlying organismal mechanisms. Insects offer an excellent system for investigating mechanisms of climate change responses due to their high sensitivity to environmental conditions and extensive historical records. Dramatic recent declines in insect populations, including of…

• Quantitative HIV Viral Load Monitoring Via Fluorescent Image Analysis

  

  Project Lead: Coleman Martin, UW Chemical Engineering Data Science Lead: Noah Benson In 2014 the United Nations set out to end the HIV/AIDs endemic by 2030 with the goal of having 90% of people living with HIV know their HIV status, be on retroviral treatment, and be virally suppressed. As of 2019, the most recent data, the…

• Challenges to Climate Adaptation Among Organic Farmers in the U.S.

  

  Project Lead: Masha Vernik, UW Environmental and Forest Sciences Data Science Lead: Curtis Atkisson As seasons become less predictable and extreme weather events become more intense and frequent, farmers learn to adapt. Adaptation can mean anything from building new infrastructure that’s out of a flood zone to installing improved irrigation lines; it can mean shifting crop plans…

• Updating Open-Source Verbal Autopsy Software to Modern Python Standards

  

  Project Lead: Abraham D. Flaxman, UW Global Health Data Science Lead: Bryna Hazelton, Naomi Alterman The purpose of this project is to modernize SmartVA-Analyze, an existing open-source verbal autopsy (VA) software, by transitioning its codebase from Python 2 to Python 3. Verbal autopsy is a crucial tool for estimating the causes of death in settings where…

• Assessing Influences of Wildfires on Park Visitation Patterns Using Gravity

  

  Project Lead: Nino Migineishvili, UW Computer Science and Engineering Data Science Lead: Spencer Wood Wildfires have been growing in size, duration, and destructivity, resulting in more decisive calls to improve forest health and protect communities. Wildfire fuel treatments – which  involve reducing or removing vegetation from fire-prone areas – are one strategy for reducing wildfire risk. Where…

• Polygenic and Contextual Determinants of Alzheimer’s Disease and Related Dementias

  

  Project Lead: Diane Xue, Institute for Public Health Genetics Data Science Lead: Bryna Hazelton One in three people over the age of 65 dies with dementia. The most common cause of dementia is Alzheimer’s disease (AD), a progressive neurodegenerative disorder influenced by genetic and environmental factors. Dozens of genetic loci have been linked to AD and related…

• Illuminating the role of cold-pools in structuring shallow convection

  

  Project Lead: Hauke Schulz, Cooperative Institute for Climate, Ocean, and Ecosystem Studies (CICOES) Data Science Lead: Bernease Herman Shallow convection, like the stratocumulus decks off the Washington coast, is responsible for a large portion of the uncertainty in climate projections, thus a better understanding of their processes is crucial. Advances in computational resources allow for ever increasing…