Overview
The Renaissance Bistro is an informational lecture series designed to introduce RENCI to the general public and spotlight RENCI’s project areas and experimental research. Topics include discussions about high performance computing, disaster research, economic development, biological sciences, social sciences and the humanities. The events are free, lunch is served on a first-come first-served basis, and each session is held at a different location throughout the state of North Carolina.
Bistro Menu
Hurricanes and Disaster Response Research
This series of lectures, presented by RENCI experts Jessica Proud, meteorologist, and Jennifer Shelton, training manager, explains RENCI’s disaster research efforts and introduces NC-FIRST, RENCI’s weather data portal designed to help emergency managers decipher weather data, understand weather threats and choose actions that minimize threats to lives and property caused by extreme weather. Other topics covered in the Bistros includes hurricane and storm surge prediction, disaster planning and mitigation, climate change and how it effects the weather and natural disasters, and the National Hurricane Center’s role in warning the public of a tropical storm threat.
USC Shoah Foundation Institute’s Visual History Archive
The University of Southern California Shoah Foundation Institute Visual History Archive (VHA) is a video archive of testimonials from Holocaust survivors and witnesses offered through the USC Shoah Foundation Institute and available to several North Carolina campuses through RENCI. The archive includes nearly 52,000 video testimonies of Holocaust survivors, witnesses and liberators collected in 32 languages and from 56 countries. RENCI experts Leesa Brieger, senior research software developer, and Jennifer Shelton explain how to use the VHA for personal and professional research.
Digital and Interactive Media
The newest Bistro program focuses on new media technology and RENCI’s multidisciplinary research efforts to use visual media in science, education, the arts and communications. RENCI’s Eric Knisley, 3D visualization researcher, and Josh Coyle, new media specialist, provide an overview and demonstration of the latest digital media technologies, from 3D digital dome imagery to interactive storytelling using touch-sensitive plasma panels. Attendees observe a brief demonstration of the Showcase Dome, a state-of-the-art research environment with a 15-foot tilted multi-projector dome display for interacting with data in an immersive 180-degree field of view.
Upcoming Bistros
Immersive Media Bistro
Tuesday, March 24
12 p.m. – 1 p.m.
RENCI at Duke University
OIT Telecommunications Building
390 Science Drive Extension
West Campus, Durham, NC
Details: The Immersive Media Bistro will focus on the unique methods and technologies used in capturing a 360 environment via RENCI. RENCI experts will discuss the use of the immersive media camera, DeltaSphere Laser Scanner and an inexpensive automated gigapixel panoramic capture. The event is free and open to the public. Lunch is provided on a first come first served basis.
2008 Presentations
June 26: Digital and Interactive Media
February 27, March 18, May 1: Shoah Foundation Institute’s Visual History Archive
2007 Presentations
September 12, 27: Hurricanes and Disaster Response Research lecture
June 27: How climate change can affect the weather and natural disasters.
February 21: RENCI Bioportal and bioinformatics research lecture
April 2: RENCI Bioportal and bioinformatics research lecture.
