A Message from Naoki Saito, Director of UCD4IDS

Dear UCD4IDS members,

Provost Croughan announced in her letter to the academic senate/federation on March 18, 2021 that the 1st floor and the basement of the Physical Sciences & Engineering Library (PSEL) would be used for data science and AI activities after the renovation. She also appointed me as a member of the Project Implementation Committee for the PSEL Renovation 2020 Project in December 2020, and he has been overseeing this renovation project since then. The PSEL renovation was just completed on December 15, 2023. This PSEL space is shared by: AIFS (AI Institute for Next Generation Food Systems) headed by Prof. Ilias Tagkopoulos (CS); DataLab headed by Prof. Carl Stahmer (English/Science & Technology Studies); UCD4IDS; and CS/Math/Stats faculty members who are engaged in DS/AI research and education. 

There are not too many offices on the 1st floor and the basement, but two faculty offices, two shared offices, and two cubicles on the 1st floor are allocated to UCD4IDS:

• Jesus De Loera and I moved into these two faculty offices by giving up our offices in Math. Sci. Bldg.
• One of the shared offices will be used by our postdocs. Unfortunately, all the postdocs supported by our TRIPODS grant are already gone. After disseminating the availability of this room for postdocs of the UCD4IDS faculty members, I only received an email expressing interest from Jesus; hence one of his postdocs:  Dr. Antonio Torres-Hernandez. He will start using this office soon; however, this room accommodates two people. So, please let me know if your postdoc is interested in moving into this room. 
• The other shared office will be used by our visitors and any UCD4IDS faculty members who are interested on a reservation basis. I will set up a Google calendar for this shared office soon, so please let me know if you are interested in using it, and I will add you to that Google calendar. 

Now, the newly renovated PSEL has the following shared rooms:

• Room 1025: a shared seminar room (capacity: 24 desks/chairs; additional 16 chairs; max. capacity: 51 people including standing room);
• Room 0030 and Room 1019: shared conference/meeting rooms (capacity: 10 ~ 14);
• Room 1006: a shared huddle space (capacity: 3 ~ 4); and
• A lot of open space equipped with sofas, tables, shared hotelling/graduate student drop-in desks/chairs to promote collaborations.

I would strongly encourage you to visit the PSEL soon to see the current atmosphere and situation for yourself. We already set up Google calendars to book these shared rooms. For example, the shared seminar room is quite suitable for modest size seminar series such as the MADDD seminars. In fact, we recently had the first in-person MADDD seminar at Room 1025 by Dr. Pablo Suarez-Serrato of National University of Mexico (the photos attached), which was quite successful! At any rate, it is important to fully utilize these shared rooms. Please take advantage of this rare opportunity for DS/AI people to collaborate in our space-tight campus. 

If you have any questions and/or suggestions, please let me know.
Thanks a lot for your help and support!

Sincerely,

Naoki Saito