Laura Christopherson, a 2020 Trusted CI Fellow, prepared the following final report and agreed to publish it on the Trusted CI blog.
Science and Security: Sound Odd?
I served as a Trusted CI Fellow during 2020 while also working on the Cyberinfrastructure Center of Excellence (CI CoE) Pilot project.1 In fact, it was through the CI CoE that I learned about Trusted CI and became interested in the fellowship. Over the past year, my work with CI CoE and the fellowship exposed me to the importance of information security in science. When I mentioned this intersection of science and security to friends or others outside of technology and academia, I often got puzzled looks. I think part of the confusion was because I was mainly talking about earth sciences (which is the type of research largely conducted by the research facilities that CI CoE supports) and I suppose people initially assumed I must be talking about health sciences. They could, of course, understand why security would be important in medicine. We all want our personal information (e.g., medical records) protected. And since March of 2020, COVID has been the leading story in all news sources, and those stories have included discussions about the importance of maintaining the integrity of COVID research data so that we can develop a vaccine as quickly as possible. It's a life or death issue.
Continue reading the report here.
