The University of Georgia will host a daylong informatics symposium on Oct. 11 that will advance interdisciplinary collaboration in this critical area and draw nationally recognized speakers to campus.

John Leslie King, the William Warner Bishop Collegiate Professor of Information at the University of Michigan, will deliver a keynote address on cyberinfrastructure at 9:30 a.m. in Masters Hall of the Georgia Center for Continuing Education. Carter T. Butts, a professor of sociology at the University of California, Irvine, will provide a second keynote address on social and biological network analysis at 1:30 p.m., also in Masters Hall.

The Georgia Informatics Symposium also includes a poster session and a collaboration-building event known as “InfoMashup” that will allow participants to meet others with shared interests in areas such as mind and body; language and communication; security, cooperation and conflict; and world and economy. The symposium also includes a panel discussion featuring faculty members hired through the recently completed Presidential Informatics Hiring Initiative, as well as a closing reception.

The symposium is sponsored by the College of Engineering and the Office of the Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs and Provost, and there is no charge to participate in any of the events. (Registration at http://gii.uga.edu/symposium/ is required for breakfast and lunch, however.)

Kyle Johnsen, an associate professor in the College of Engineering who is one of nearly a dozen symposium organizers from multiple units on campus, said the principal goal of the Georgia Informatics Symposium is to facilitate networking and interdisciplinary team building among scholars engaged in informatics research and education.

He notes that the symposium comes at a time of significant growth in informatics research and instruction at UGA. The university has more than 160 faculty members whose work involves the analysis of massive data sets, including eight new faculty members hired through the Presidential Informatics Hiring Initiative. The proposed Georgia Informatics Institutes for Research and Education would serve as a hub for informatics-related activities across campus and aims to administer both undergraduate and graduate certificate programs as well as to offer foundational courses in informatics.

“The symposium directly aligns with the mission of the Georgia Informatics Institutes for Research and Education, and it will be a critical step toward engaging our faculty and students in its planning and growth,” said Johnsen, who is directing the initiative to establish the GII.