Who We Are
The Institute for Interdisciplinary Data Sciences (IIDS) is a research institute within the Office of Research and Economic Development (ORED) at the University of Idaho. The mission of IIDS is to empower researchers to fully harness the potential of the data revolution by provisioning and administering critical university research infrastructure related to genomics, bioinformatics, research computing, and data science. IIDS houses three service units including Research Computing and Data Services (RCDS), the Genomics and Bioinformatics Resources Core (GBRC), and the Initiative for Bioinformatics and Evolutionary Studies (IBEST). IIDS is a vibrant home for interdisciplinary research between student, postdoc, and faculty participants. IIDS participants can access support for proposal development and grants management, expertise, infrastructure, training, and professional development activities.
Questions?News

IIDS Generative AI Fellowship Program
In Fall 2024, the Institute for Interdisciplinary Data Science (IIDS) launched the Generative AI Fellowship Program, a one-semester opportunity designed to empower faculty and research staff to incorporate generative AI into their research. The program offers tailored project support from IIDS experts, fostering interdisciplinary collaboration and innovation. Open to participants at all levels of AI proficiency—whether you're an experienced coder or just beginning to explore AI tools—this fellowship provides an opportunity to enhance your research by leveraging generative AI technology. At the conclusion of the fellowship, participants showcase their work in a research presentation, highlighting how generative AI has enhanced their projects. Photo by Chris Giamo and Garrett Britton, University Visual Productions.

GRANTED Award
University of Idaho (U of I) has been awarded a $4.5 million grant from the National Science Foundation’s (NSF) Growing Research Access for Nationally Transformative Economic Development (GRANTED) program. The GRANTED program’s goal is to enhance the U.S. research enterprise by improving administration support infrastructure, increasing service capacity and broadening participation by developing institutions across the national research landscape.

GRANTED Program Now Hiring
The University of Idaho is seeking two Data Scientists to participate in an innovative National Science Foundation-funded project: “Crossing the Innovation Valley of Death: Democratizing Data and Artificial Intelligence for Research Administration.” The project offers the opportunity to pioneer the development of open-source AI solutions that will reshape how universities manage operations, while leading the democratization of data access and analysis across the research administration landscape. One position will have a focus on technical development and implementation, while the other will combine technical expertise with training and knowledge dissemination responsibilities.
CORE FACILITIES

Genomics Resources Core
The Genomics & Bioinformatics Resources Core (GBRC) provides researchers from the University of Idaho access to technology, experience, and expertise in genomics research. Applications of these technologies are commonly used in biomedical research, but the interdisciplinary focus of the University of Idaho results in a wide range of fields that can benefit from the core, including microbial studies, agricultural studies, forest management, and animal science. The Genomics Resources core is also available to researchers that are external to the University of Idaho.
Research Computing and Data Services
The Research Computing and Data Services serves as the computational backbone for research at the University of Idaho. It provides investigators with state of the art high performance computing and large data storage capacity for use in analyzing and managing large volumes of research data. Users of the core run jobs that may use hundreds of processors in parallel or large memory allocations and may run require weeks to complete. The RCDS data center is explicitly designed to manage the complex computational and storage requirements for UI researchers very high data reliability and availability. The core contains an advanced mix of high performance computing clusters, powerful servers and reliable data storage components as well as the knowledge and technical skills required to compress years of analysis into days.
RCDS provides research data management and computing support for UI researchers and their regional, national, and international collaborators. Support for research data management, curation, and dynamic access keeps our researchers at the cutting-edge of science and increases and enhances our institution's competitiveness for external research grants. Quality data and metadata developed in research projects and curated by NKN is a valuable, long-term asset for a public land-grant University and provides a foundation and source upon which to develop and build new research and science