NYC Workshop

During this workshop, to be held at Columbia University in New York City on 25-26 January 2019, participants will discuss how multimessenger astrophysics (MMA) drives cyberinfrastructure needs, best practices to address those needs in a cross-field collaborative manner, and how an optimized cyberinfrastructure could enhance scientific workflow, rapid discovery, training, and education. Participation is limited and will be allotted on a first-come/first-serve basis. The SCiMMA project will pay or reimburse all participant costs. We strongly encourage those with expertise in computer science/data science/cyberinfrastructure and an interest in contributing to the development of cyberinfrastructure for MMA to apply.

Recent breakthrough observations of GW170817A and IceCube-170922A highlight the promise, opportunities and challenges of the emerging field of Multi-Messenger Astrophysics (MMA). The promise of MMA can only by fulfilled with sufficient cyberinfrastructure to rapidly handle, combine, and analyze the very large-scale distributed data from all the types of astronomical measurements.

This workshop will bring together experts in astrophysics theory, astronomical observations, computer science, data science, information science, and cyberinfrastructure to identify and document the scalable cyberinfrastructure (broadly defined) needs of MMA. Specifically, we aim to address:

• How do the MMA science cases drive particular cyberinfrastructure requirements?
• What are the best practices for distributed data-handling, computing, analysis, and collaboration services/systems to enable discovery, education, and innovation?
• What are optimal cyberinfrastructure services to enable enhance cross-field knowledge sharing?
• How could an institute best unify and serve those cyberinfrastructure needs?

This workshop is one of several initiatives of the Community Planning for Scalable Cyberinfrastructure to support Multi-Messenger Astrophysics (SCiMMA) project, which aims to identify the key questions and cyberinfrastructure required by the community to take full advantage of current facilities and imminent next-generation projects for MMA. SCiMMA will produce:

1. A community white paper that presents an in-depth analysis of the cyberinfrastructure needs and the opportunities for collaborations among astronomers, computer scientists, and data scientists.
2. A strategic plan for a scalable cyberinfrastructure institute for multi-messenger astrophysics laying out its proposed mission, identifying the highest priority areas for cyberinfrastructure research and development for the US-based multi-messenger astrophysics community, and presenting a strategy for managing and evolving a set of services that benefits and engages the entire community.