Greater interdisciplinary exchange is the purpose of the recently established Center for Computational Intelligence, Learning and Discovery. The new center could also provide graduate students and professionals with new jobs.

“We are fortunate enough to have some real international experts here at Iowa State and they, led by Vasant Honavar, approached us about establishing the center,” said James Bloedel, vice provost for research administration. “We hope by establishing this center we are able to attract graduate students as well as new faculty.”

The center, established by President Gregory Geoffroy on July 1, allows for research using computer science in virtually any university research area.

Approximately 20 faculty members are affiliated with the center already, led by Dr. Vasant Honavar, director of the center and professor of computer science. The center brings together computer scientists, statisticians and scientists to create algorithms and software for data-driven discovery and decision making.

Iowa State’s is among only a few centers of this kind, Bloedel said.The center is designed to be interdisciplinary and combine computer science with different areas of university study such as agriculture or biology, Bloedel said.

Honavar said the center works with core faculty who do the computational work and affiliate faculty who have the pre-existing data that need to be analyzed.

“We are working on several projects right now that have to do with learning from multiple physical data repositories, as well as a model of the visual system of animals with the goal of understanding how the retina develops,” he said.

As designed, the affiliate faculty members of the center have grown to include professors from a broad array of disciplines. They include the departments of genetics, economics, management information systems, animal science and biomedical sciences.

Honavar said there has already been a great deal of interest in the center despite its recent founding.

“While the establishment of the center itself is new, the ideas behind it have been in the works for a few years now,” he said.