II. 3. e. Conference and Symposia Grant Award

In the last few years, new technologies have matured with the potential to revolutionize how we conduct and share research. Technologies built around decentralization have particular relevance to information security and environments in which information is collected in a spatially distributed manner, such as in environmental sensing, as related to cyber-physical systems, and in edge-AI. Decentralized technologies also have the potential to impact knowledge management by fostering transparency, accountability, reproducibility, and collaboration. This workshop brings together researchers from the environmental and computational sciences communities to explore opportunities offered by decentralized technologies to grow knowledge, support the sharing and synthesis of information, and enhance collaboration. The workshop will be built around three specific themes/objectives: (i) Data and information storage and management, (ii) connection and collaboration, and (iii) overcoming barriers to interdisciplinary research. Applications of interest include environmental sensing and prediction, environmental security, the built environment, scientific machine learning (SciML), digital twins, cyber-physical systems, and the internet of things (IoT). The event will be held over 1.5 days in the Alfred J. Lerner Hall at Columbia University and will feature ~25 participants from diverse fields and organizations. Participants will each give a 15-minutes talk, and a comparable amount of time will be devoted to group discussions. Breakout sessions will be organized, to foster in-depth discussions on the three workshop themes. Deliverables, including a full report with detailed notes for ARO will be produced, along with a summary report for publication within the broader literature.