The National Science Foundation this month awarded $300,000 over three years to CU-Boulder to create the Rocky Mountain Research Data Center (RMRDC), which will be housed in the Institute of Behavioral Science (IBS). The center joins a relatively exclusive group of 19 others across the U.S. and is expected to be a boon for researchers and raise the profile of CU-Boulder to prospective faculty and graduate students.
“Graduate students’ ability to do original research will be much, much stronger,” said Keith Maskus, an economics professor and principal investigator on the project. “We will be training generations of graduate students who will have far better familiarity with data and how to use big data sets. That will lead them directly into new kinds of careers.”
Nearly all major research institutions near CU-Boulder will use and support the center, including the University of Wyoming, Colorado State University, University of Colorado Denver, the Anschutz Medical Campus, University of Colorado Colorado Springs, the National Center for Atmospheric Research, the National Renewable Energy Laboratory and Colorado state government.
“The new connections with universities and laboratories in Colorado and Wyoming will increase the breadth of our intellectual networks and the speed with which major social problems are analyzed,” IBS Director Myron Gutmann said.
