Broader Engagement Program Expands to the 2022 SIAM Conference on Mathematics of Data Science

In 2015, Mary Ann Leung—president and founder of the Sustainable Horizons Institute (SHI)—organized the first SHI Broader Engagement (BE) program at a SIAM conference. The BE program offers financial assistance to members of underrepresented and underprivileged groups, allowing them full access to the robust programming at SIAM conferences. It also promotes mentorship, networking, and other activities to ultimately foster a sense of community and connect participants to one another. In addition, the program’s various opportunities for scientists to volunteer, recruit, and learn encourage an overall feeling of inclusion and belonging.

The first BE program took place at the 2015 SIAM Conference on Computational Science and Engineering (CSE15). Two years later, SHI began organizing Guided Affinity Groups (GAGs) during BE programming to enhance participants’ conference experiences and heighten their relationships with SIAM. During daily GAG meetings, volunteers who are familiar with some of the conference’s technical themes recommend noteworthy sessions, answer any questions, and discuss conference presentations with attendees. Each group then shares their takeaways at the end of the week.

After a successful virtual event at CSE21, BE returned with an in-person program at the 2022 SIAM Conference on Mathematics of Data Science (MDS22), which took place in San Diego, Calif., this September. Participating students had the chance to explore recent advances in data science, advocate for science in their particular subfields, discuss their work with other attendees, contribute to their overall research profiles, and form meaningful relationships with professionals and/or future collaborators with similar interests.

At MDS22, volunteers managed the following six GAGs on a variety of topics:

• Inverse Problems and Applications, led by Sean Ryan Breckling (Nevada National Security Site) and Malena Español (Arizona State University)
• Network Science: Connection, Computation, and Complex Systems, led by Philip Samuel Chodrow (Middlebury College) and Heather Zinn Brooks (Harvey Mudd College)
• Going Deep with Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning for Science and Engineering, led by Alina Lazar (Youngstown State University) and Xiangyang Ju (Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory)
• Implementing Artificial Intelligence in Healthcare: A Natural Language Processing Approach, led by Destinee Summer Morrow (Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory)
• When Probabilistic Graphical Models Meet Deep Learning to Advance Machine Learning for Science, led by Talita Perciano (Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory) 
• Optimize Everything!, led by Stefan Wild (Argonne National Laboratory). 

Students also enjoyed daily breakfasts with their GAGs and SIAM leadership.

Participants of the MDS22 BE program attended panel discussions, delivered lightning talks to practice communicating their research, and partook in the Poster Session and Reception. Adrian De La Rocha Galan, a BE student from the University of Texas at El Paso, even received one of the meeting’s six Best Poster Awards. In addition, scientists from several national laboratories and universities throughout the U.S. organized multiple BE tutorials that were open to all conference registrants:

• Fundamentals of Accelerated Data Science with RAPIDS, a two-part session led by Xi Chen (University of Kentucky)
• Data Science with Julia and Julia for Python Programmers, both led by Johannes P. Blaschke (Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory)
• Hands On High-performance Computing Crash Course, a two-part session led by Suzanne Parete-Koon and Leah Huk (both of Oak Ridge National Laboratory)
• Introduction to Graph Neural Networks, led by Alina Lazar (Youngstown State University) and Xiangyang Ju (Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory)
• Best Practices and Tools for Secure Scientific Software Development, led by Nitin Sukhija (Slippery Rock University).

Upon the conclusion of MDS22, several BE participants shared testimonials about their experiences in the program. Shelby Horth, an undergraduate applied mathematics student at Wake Forest University, spoke highly of both her first BE experience and her first time at a conference. “It was inspiring to see so many like-minded individuals striving for success,” she said. “The abundance of support that I received from this incredible community definitely reinforced my enthusiasm for applied mathematics and data science. It was great to interact with such encouraging mentors and professionals across many disciplines, and to witness cutting-edge research from various domains. I made many new and hopefully long-lasting connections, and I can confidently say that this experience has motivated me to continue attending conferences and engaging with the opportunities that SIAM has to offer.”

Victoria Uribe, a Ph.D. student in applied mathematics at Arizona State University, had a similarly positive outlook. She had previously engaged in the virtual BE program during CSE21 and was glad to attend MDS22 in person. “The GAG breakfasts gave us an opportunity to network with other participants before the start of the daily sessions, and overall participation in the BE program provided us with a group of new friends with whom to attend the conference,” she said. “I was particularly excited for the tutorials and was not disappointed. The tutorial leaders were extremely friendly and supplied us with all of the materials that we needed to work at our own pace. I am very thankful to have been a part of BE again and attended MDS22.”