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Ian Foster

@ianfoster42.bsky.social
1.6K followers 453 following 1.9K posts

Deep computing for deep science. UChicago & Argonne Nat Lab. Work with amazing people. Globus. AI, HPC, robotics for discovery. And sailing. And books. And music. And beauty.

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Reposted by Ian Foster
Prasad Jallepalli, MD, PhD @prasad.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
5 potatoes cubed is still 5 potatoes because potatoes are root vegetables
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The Whimsical Muse @whimsicalmuse.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
At the end of the day, don’t we all just want to read books, drink tea, and eat pastries in a humble seaside cottage during a raging storm?
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Ian Foster @ianfoster42.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
Felix, qui potuit rerum cognoscere causas birdsnfrogs.github.io/2026/09/12/F...
birdsnfrogs.github.io
Happy, those able to know the causes of things
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Globus Labs @globuslabs.bsky.social · 01/09/2026
AI agents are showing up everywhere in science right now, but deploying them on real research infrastructure presents unique challenges: e.g., federated authentication, restrictive networks, diverse compute, and systems that aren't always up. Paper: doi.org/10.2139/ssrn...
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Canadian History Ehx @cdnhistoryehx.bsky.social · 25/08/2026
Before Europeans arrived, these were some of the names for The Great Lakes: Superior: gichi-gami (great sea) Erie: erielhonan (long tail) Michigan: michigami (long body of water) Ontario: Ontarí'io\kanadario (great lake\beautiful water) Huron: karegnondi (fresh water sea)
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Data Science Institute @dsi-uchicago.bsky.social · 26/08/2026
AI weather forecasts could help millions of farmers in developing economies decide when to plant, harvest, and protect their crops 🌍 @beccawillett.bsky.social, Nobel laureate Michael Kremer, @pedramh.bsky.social, & @ianfoster42.bsky.social won a Laude Institute Moonshots grant to make it happen
youtu.be
Advancing Actionable AI Weather Forecasts for Developing Economies | @UChicago + @LaudeInstitute
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Better Things Are Possible @internethippo.bsky.social · 25/08/2026
Let me get this straight. Sometimes a famous person dies and everyone is nice about it? Merely because of their deeds during life?
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LIA 福振凡 🇺🇳🇨🇳🇺🇸 @fuzhenfan.bsky.social · 29/07/2026
Ever wonder what a summer in Chicago would look like? (As I post this from one of the offices)
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Globus Labs @globuslabs.bsky.social · 18/08/2026
Congratulations to Dr. J. Gregory Pauloski on winning the SIGHPC 2026 Doctoral Dissertation Award for his dissertation, "Programming the Continuum: Towards Better Techniques for Developing Distributed Science Applications"! 🎉 www.sighpc.org/opportunitie...
sighpc.org
Meeting Your Needs - 2026 Award Winner
Dr. J. Gregory Pauloski, a graduate of the University of Chicago Recognized for his dissertation "Programming the Continuum: Towards Better Techniques for Developing Distributed Science Applications” ...
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Ben Blaiszik @benblaiszik.bsky.social · 18/08/2026
The LLM Hackathon for Applications in Materials and Chemistry is now the Open Scientific Intelligence Hackathon, and our next event will be Oct 21–22, 2026! 🗓️ Oct 21–22 📍 Hybrid, online, in-person sites TBA As always, the event is free, hybrid, and worldwide. Register here llmhackathon.github.io
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Admirable Women @admirablewomen.bsky.social · 17/08/2026
Computer scientist Margaret Hamilton coined the term “software engineer.” She directed the Software Engineering Division at MIT’s Instrumentation Lab & led development of the on-board flight software for NASA’s Apollo Guidance Computer. She was born #OTD in 1936 & turns 90 today! #WomenInSTEM
Two side-by-side black-and-white photographs of pioneering computer scientist Margaret Hamilton (born August 17, 1936). The left panel features a mature, close-up portrait where Hamilton gazes directly at the viewer with a serene, confident, and reflective expression, framed by her long, dark, slightly silvering hair. The right panel is a famous archival photograph showing a younger Hamilton standing indoors next to a towering stack of bound paper binders containing the Apollo Guidance Computer source code, which she led the development of at MIT. She is smiling broadly and wears a striped, long-sleeved mini dress with dark Mary Jane shoes and glasses, resting her hand proudly on top of the massive column of printed code. The overall composition contrasts her youthful triumph with her enduring legacy, capturing an optimistic, intellectually rigorous mood that highlights her monumental contributions to space exploration.
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Ian Foster @ianfoster42.bsky.social · 17/08/2026
“The first rule is to assume that what you are reading might be fraudulent.” Sigh. But true.
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Globus Labs @globuslabs.bsky.social · 13/08/2026
Congrats to @kylechard.bsky.social and @benblaiszik.bsky.social on being a part of the new NSF Materials Innovation Platforms at @uwmadison.bsky.social! The initiative will advance materials research through AI, automation, and expand access to cutting-edge facilities. www.nsf.gov/news/nsf-sta...
nsf.gov
NSF stands up 2 Materials Innovation Platforms with $50M investment
The U.S. National Science Foundation is investing $50 million in research infrastructure to enable the discovery and development of materials that can withstand extreme conditions, from lightweight…
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Ian Foster @ianfoster42.bsky.social · 09/08/2026
Thanks for the shout out!
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Melanie Mitchell @melaniemitchell.bsky.social · 02/08/2026
I'm just now reading @randomwalker.bsky.social's writeup of his ICML keynote. It is very insightful. Everyone thinking about the future of work in the age of AI should read this. www.normaltech.ai/p/what-will-...
normaltech.ai
What will be left for us to work on?
My keynote at ICML 2026
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Warless Goddess @warlessgoddess.bsky.social · 01/08/2026
Jeanne Gibson, one of the last surviving Rosie the Riveters, died on July 29, 2026. She was 100 Years old. Born in Minneapolis in 1926, she was only 18 when she moved to Seattle to weld U.S. Navy destroyers at Todd Pacific Shipyards. Rest in peace, Jeanne
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Michael Tobis (mt) @mtobis.bsky.social · 30/07/2026
Also spending more time with books again. Here's my three cents: - Read books on paper. - About two thirds of what I read is over 15 years old; consider books from other times. Used bookstores contain gems. - If you dropped a book some time ago, give it another look. You might like it better now.
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Kate Klonick @klonick.bsky.social · 28/07/2026
Sat down to write about the Hugging Face/AI incident. Ended up drawing this instead.
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Costa Samaras @costasamaras.com · 19/07/2026
Could Excel be conscious? We surveyed more than Jan 1 1900 people to find out.
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Sarah T Roberts, PhD @ubiquity75.xyz · 17/07/2026
Recommending the Laura Poitras documentary on Sy Hersh, for those who’d like to know about the relationship the New York Times has to the powerful, for one. www.netflix.com/us/title/821...
netflix.com
Watch Cover-Up | Netflix Official Site
He's devoted his career to uncovering stories the powerful want buried. From My Lai to Abu Ghraib, dig into the life's work of journalist Seymour Hersh.
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Simon Kuestenmacher @simongerman600.bsky.social · 11/07/2026
One way of seeing climate change in action is looking at 1200 year continuous data from Japan about cherry tree blossoming.
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Paul Bassett Davies @thewritertype.bsky.social · 08/07/2026
America and Iran should sort out their diaries and publish a schedule indicating which days a war is on and which days are a ceasefire. It would make everyone's admin so much easier.
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Michael Tobis (mt) @mtobis.bsky.social · 03/07/2026
#graphicdujour
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Data Science Institute @dsi-uchicago.bsky.social · 02/07/2026
Are you a computational scientist interested in applying AI and machine learning to support climate science research? The Research Computing Center is looking for an AI/ML Engineer to support faculty, postdoctoral researchers, and graduate students conducting computational and AI-driven research 🔗👇
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Ian Foster @ianfoster42.bsky.social · 30/06/2026
People have lovely slides now thanks to AI but they all look similar. I remember when every speaker had their own style of handwritten slides. Like this 😀
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Adam Steinbaugh @adamsteinbaugh.bsky.social · 28/06/2026
After federal agents shot Alex Pretti in Minneapolis, a New Yorker sent ICE's director an email in January comparing him to a Nazi. This week, DHS agents stalked him across New York. His home. A hotel. They gave his wife a letter warning of criminal prosecution. www.syracuse.com/news/2026/06...
Two DHS agents on a doorbell camera.“You are a monstrous human being and will go down in history as America’s Reinhard Heydrich, the butcher.

“The way you are protecting the obvious execution in Minnesota, even as we see the videos, will lead to your downfall. Even Trump will turn on you before the end, and you will be a sad, despised man who eats himself alive with shame at your own pathetic weakness.

“You will never know peace. You will seek to lose yourself, to escape the burden of knowing the truth about yourself. But wherever you go, you will find yourself. You will torment yourself until your last day on Earth.”
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Dr Michele V @micheleveldsman.bsky.social · 25/06/2026
“I have done all of the things that one is supposed to do to earn a tenure-track position. And I have done approximately 85% of them by typing prompts into a large language model and then moderately editing the output.” 🤣🤣🤣 brilliant 👌🏽 open.substack.com/pub/inprepar...
open.substack.com
Opinion: I Was Not Allowed To Type Prompts Into ChatGPT During My Chalk Talk And This Is Discrimination
By Dr. Rachel Simmons, Postdoctoral Fellow, Stanford University
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eustace @eustace.justshootme.ca · 25/06/2026
This book hits me right in the childhood. I found this at a local bookstore. I was on my way out the door and just happened to catch a glimpse of it in the corner of my eye. Everyone should read this book immediately.
The 50th anniversary edition of Norton Juster's "The Phantom Tollbooth." It features a cartoon sketch of a young boy nose to nose with a watchdog (by watchdog, we mean a large dog with an equally large watch embedded in his torso).
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Paul Bassett Davies @thewritertype.bsky.social · 21/06/2026
Yes, it's the longest day of the year but luckily it's also the narrowest day, so don’t worry about the risk of awkward gaps in the space time continuum. It’s taken care of.
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Prisonculture @prisonculture.bsky.social · 20/06/2026
This is the legal defense fund for the 15 anti-ICE organizers who were recently arrested in Minneapolis. Please contribute generously. They are going to have millions of dollars worth of needs. chuffed.org/project/1865...
chuffed.org
Legal Defense Fund for MN Anti-ICE Organizers
On the morning of June 16th 2026 fifteen anti-ICE organizers were indicted on federal conspiracy charges in Minnesota, 12 of whom were arrested in aggressive raids across the Twin Cities. This fundrai...
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John Small @smalltorquer.bsky.social · 20/06/2026
Great recognition for the R development team at UoAuckland stats dept. Ross Ihaka & Robert Gentlemen changed the world.... phys.org/news/2026-06...
phys.org
New Zealand scientists working on 'R' win major global award
Scientists working on the revolutionary 'R' programming language invented at the University of Auckland have won a top award intended to be a Nobel Prize for statisticians.
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Rae Radford @raeradford.bsky.social · 19/06/2026
What a fantastic idea! #BookSky
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Carl Zimmer @carlzimmer.com · 18/06/2026
Trump Administration Backs Off Plan to End Ocean Monitoring. Gift link: nyti.ms/4oC3U25
nyti.ms
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Ian Foster @ianfoster42.bsky.social · 18/06/2026
For example see geneticliteracyproject.org/2025/06/25/v...
geneticliteracyproject.org
Viewpoint: RFK, Jr. wrongly demonizes the safe and effective HPV vaccine Gardasil
hile HHS Secretary Kennedy frets over food dye in Froot Loops, his 2023 attack on Gardasil — a vaccine proven to prevent deadly cancers — reveals a
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Andrea Wulf @andreawulf.bsky.social · 16/06/2026
'The Traveller' is Book of the Week in 'Review of Reviews' in THE WEEK. Very exciting. And incidentally, there is also a mention of my review of Maggie O'Farrell's amazing "Land" (which I loved). Double whammy!
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Data Science Institute @dsi-uchicago.bsky.social · 15/06/2026
How can AI companies properly compensate content creators for training data? Raul Castro Fernandez and @glenweyl.bsky.social published an op-ed in @hbr.org exploring how to create a sustainable market that benefits creators, AI companies, and the public 🔗 hbr.org/2026/06/how-...
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c0nc0rdance @c0nc0rdance.bsky.social · 14/06/2026
You're looking at the bird with the shortest beak in the world, but only on a technicality, as beak length is measured from nostrils ('nares') to tips. And the nostril of a kiwi bird is right on the very end of that long schnozzle. Let's talk about the kiwi's completely unique 'nose'.
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Lorena A Barba @labarba.bsky.social · 12/06/2026
Last spring I taught a graduate course built on the idea that 𝘧𝘭𝘶𝘦𝘯𝘤𝘺 𝘸𝘪𝘵𝘩 𝘈𝘐 𝘪𝘴 𝘢 𝘳𝘦𝘴𝘦𝘢𝘳𝘤𝘩 𝘴𝘬𝘪𝘭𝘭, not a novelty: 𝗚𝗲𝗻𝗲𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗶𝘃𝗲 𝗔𝗜 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝗘𝗻𝗴𝗶𝗻𝗲𝗲𝗿𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗥𝗲𝘀𝗲𝗮𝗿𝗰𝗵—all the course materials are now public. Take it, use it, adapt it for your own students or your own research. barbagroup.github.io/mae6291-genai/
barbagroup.github.io
Generative AI for Engineering Research (MAE-6291) — Lorena A. Barba group
MAE-6291, Spring 2026. A graduate course teaching engineering PhD students to use generative AI as a research accelerator. Lecture notes and slides, openly shared.
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Ian Foster @ianfoster42.bsky.social · 04/06/2026
The SciFM conversation is shifting from models to systems. The interesting questions this year were increasingly about how to connect agents, instruments, data, simulations, and compute into effective discovery ecosystems. cs.uchicago.edu/news/scifm-2... @ramanathanlab.bsky.social
cs.uchicago.edu
SciFM 2026 at UChicago: Inside the Premier Gathering of AI, Foundation Models, and the Future of Scientific Discovery - Department of Computer Science
Walking onto the University of Chicago campus this May, visitors to SciFM 2026 could sense the electric anticipation. As the third installment of the Scientific Foundation Models conference series unf...
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Paul Bassett Davies @thewritertype.bsky.social · 03/06/2026
Life hack: Who can afford monogramed shirts these days? Simply get your initials tattooed on your chest and cut a little hole out of all your shirts in the appropriate spot.
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Melanie Mitchell @melaniemitchell.bsky.social · 03/06/2026
It's always a treat to read Ted Chiang's thoughts on AI. www.theatlantic.com/philosophy/2...
theatlantic.com
No, Artificial Intelligence Is Not Conscious
Taken to its logical conclusion, this line of thinking is absurd—and damning.
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In Otter News @in-otter-news.bsky.social · 02/06/2026
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Maggie Wiggin @maggie162.bsky.social · 01/06/2026
My god, Octavia Butler, just miss ONCE
 Page from a book saying:

From EARTHSEED: THE BOOKS OF THE LIVING
Choose your Leaders with wisdom and forethought.
To be led by a coward is to be controlled
by all that the coward fears.
To be led by a fool is to be led
by the opportunists who control the fool.
To be led by a thief is to offer up your most precious treasures to be stolen.
To be led by a liar
is to ask to be told lies.
To be led by a tyrant is to sell yourself and those you love into slavery.
t
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Data Science Institute @dsi-uchicago.bsky.social · 26/05/2026
AI-Accelerated Materials Discovery Don’t miss this week’s entry in the AI & Scientific Discovery Online Seminar AI for Battery Series! Featuring Rajeev Assary, Group Leader of the Chemist Molecular Materials Group at Argonne National Laboratory ai-scientific-discovery.github.io
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Kate Starbird @katestarbird.bsky.social · 26/05/2026
Here’s one little-h hypothesis: even for folks doing reasonably well in this strange economy, they can see the worst people in the world just raking in money in the ugliest of ways; they know they’ll never be able to compete with that & that whatever they have will be worth less & less over time.
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Econ Analytica @econanalytica.bsky.social · 25/05/2026
Cartoon by Barry Blitt
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Melanie Mitchell @melaniemitchell.bsky.social · 21/05/2026
"Science is not simply a sequence of tasks that can be optimized....The scientific system thrives on inefficiency: redundant efforts, failed attempts, and divergent paths. These are not costs to be eliminated but sources of discovery." Excellent essay! ⬇️ www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
science.org
Progression without progress
Progress in the use of artificial intelligence (AI) to advance scientific discovery has made it increasingly realistic to envision automated “end-to-end science” (ETES) systems: integrated pipelines t...
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Globus.org @globusorg.bsky.social · 18/05/2026
It took Globus 10+ years to surpass the 1 EB mark for data transfers. Well today we have now passed the 4 EB mark. Check it out on globus.org. #research data management
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The Whimsical Muse @whimsicalmuse.bsky.social · 17/05/2026
I don’t exactly have scientific data to support this, but I firmly believe that the sound of rain on the roof enhances the reading experience by at least 57%.
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