Annual Report 2008.pdf - SAMSI

C. Directorate’s Summary of Challenges and Responses
As we proceed through the first year of the 5-year renewal grant, SAMSI has continued
to be successful in achieving its’ goals. The scientific programs have been of high caliber,
and have led to significant new and ongoing research collaborations between, statistics,
applied mathematics, and disciplinary sciences. There has been significant human
resource development, through the postdoctoral and graduate programs and through
involvement of senior researchers in new interdisciplinary areas. Many students across
the country have been shown the SAMSI vision through educational outreach programs
and courses. We feel that these successes are amply demonstrated throughout the report;
some highlights are given in section D of the Executive Summary. This section discusses
the challenges that arose this year and the Directorate’s response to these challenges.
Building Addition: Our biggest challenge at SAMSI over the past two years has been a
lack of space. Offices (meant for one person) sometimes were occupied by three.
Furthermore, there was simply no room for local scientists to reside at SAMSI, which
meant that their participation was mostly limited to the formal working group meetings,
as opposed to the informal interactions and mentoring that can happen when resident.
Meeting space has also been a severe problem. Our largest current meeting room holds
only 35 people, which precluded holding many workshops on site. There was also a
shortage of meeting space for the Research Working Groups; these groups now have
many external members, who connect to the working group meetings over our web-based
system. We currently have only one room that is properly equipped for these web-based
meetings, making scheduling of all the working group meetings a logistics nightmare.
With the renewal of SAMSI, we were able to proceed with the plan to address this major
problem by fast-tracking the planning and preparation for the long-awaited addition to the
NISS/SAMSI building. NISS, which is undertaking the building addition, and especially
NISS Director Alan Karr – who was the key figure in this planning and implementation –
are owed a great debt of gratitude by SAMSI. Groundbreaking took place on November
2, 2007, and construction began in February of 2008. The addition will be complete in
early Fall 2008, hopefully in time for the influx of people for the 2008-2009 programs.
The 11,782 square foot addition will effectively double SAMSI’s office space, allowing
more visitors and stronger engagement by program participants from the Research
Triangle universities. The addition will also contain space to be shared by SAMSI and
NISS, including a break room and accompanying rooftop terrace and a 50-seat lecture
room. The lecture room will change dramatically the scale and nature of SAMSI events
held on-site. Not only does it double the number of in-person participants, but also it will
provide state-of-the art electronic capabilities that enable even more remote participation
in SAMSI workshops and working group meetings.
An ongoing photographic log of the construction process is available on the NISS web
site, at http://www.niss.org/photogallery/construction2008/construction08-home.html.
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