Industry Day Highlights

Ichiro Takeuchi

The theme for the Industry Day this year was Big Data and Physics – Bits to Knowledge, and FIAP had multiple co-sponsored invited sessions covering a range of topics on data science. The Wednesday morning session titled “Data Science as the Driving Force for Industrial Physics” was chaired by Jason Gardner from FECS (Forum on Early Career Scientists), and speakers from academia and industries talked about how data science is transforming our society. In-depth discussions included pitfalls of big data and how to navigate one’s career in the field of data science.

The midday session was “Physics That Changed the World” chaired by Eli Yablonovitch (UC Berkeley). From laser diodes and organic LEDs to bipolar transistors and magnetic hard drives, invited speakers chronicled invention and history of a number of key device components used in everyday electronics, the hardware which supports and enables big data. See "FIAP at the March Meeting" later in this newsletter for additional details.

The afternoon session titled “Put Big Data in Your Physics Toolbox” was co-sponsored by AIP, and it was chaired by Steven Lambert (APS) and Brad Conrad (AIP). This session featured invited speakers who are actively using data science techniques in tackling physics and other science problems, and the use of artificial intelligence and machine learning was the recurring theme of the talks.

Opinions expressed represent the views of the individual authors and not the American Physical Society or author’s employers.