« All Events

AWS Research Day

April 23 @ 8:30 am – April 24 @ 3:30 pm

Iowa State University  ·  In-Person Event
AWS Research Day
for Iowa State University

Join fellow ISU researchers for a two-day, in-person event to discover how Amazon Web Services cloud-powered AI and data platforms can accelerate your research — through use cases, expert-led demos, and hands-on workshops.

April 23–24, 2026  ·  Thu & Fri
8:30 AM – 3:30 PM
📍 Day 1: Hach Hall Atrium  ·  Day 2: Digital Ag Innovation
Bring your laptop for Day 2
Register Now → View Agenda
At a Glance
Day 1 — Apr 23 AWS for Research
Day 2 — Apr 24 Hands-On Workshops
Experience required None — all levels welcome
Cost Free
Presented in partnership with
Amazon Web Services (AWS) · Translational AI Center (TrAC) · Iowa State University
About the Event Two days of discovery, demos, and hands-on work The training will feature use cases, demos, and workshops led by cloud experts and experienced researchers. Whether you’re new to the cloud or looking to optimize your existing work, you’ll leave with practical knowledge and skills.
📅

Day 1 — April 23: AWS for Research

  • Interactive sessions with live demonstrations
  • Latest trends and research success stories from the cloud
  • Introductions to SageMaker, AI agents, and core AWS services
  • Networking lunch and open AWS Office Hours
🛠️

Day 2 — April 24: Hands-On Workshops

  • Intensive workshops tailored to your research domain
  • Hands-on with conversational analytics and ML model building
  • Concurrent breakout on genomics & life sciences
  • Bring your laptop — you’ll be building
🎯

What You’ll Come Away With

  • Skills to query research data through natural language
  • Experience automating repetitive workflows with AI
  • Knowledge to build a complete ML lifecycle for your research
  • Connections with AWS experts and fellow ISU researchers
💡 No AWS experience required. Whether you’re completely new to the cloud or already running research workloads on AWS, this event is designed to meet you where you are.
Who Should Attend Built for the entire research community Open to anyone at ISU who is curious about applying cloud and AI technologies to research — no prior experience with AWS required.
🔬 Researchers
👩‍🏫 Faculty
🧪 Scientists
💻 IT Professionals
🎓 Graduate Students
✋ Please bring your laptop on Day 2 for the hands-on workshop sessions. Day 1 sessions do not require a laptop.
Agenda Two focused days Day 1 introduces the cloud research ecosystem through demos and presentations. Day 2 goes deep with hands-on technical workshops.
Day 1 — April 23 AWS for Research — Sessions & Demos
📝 Primarily presentations and demos. No laptop required.
8:30 – 9:00 AM
Arrival
Check-in & Breakfast
9:00 – 9:15 AM
Opening
Welcome and Introduction
9:15 – 10:00 AM
Keynote
Research on AWS
This session will showcase how researchers are using AWS to accelerate their work. Attendees will learn about the latest trends, use cases, and success stories from the research community, highlighting the transformative impact of cloud computing on scientific discovery.
10:00 – 10:15 AM
Break
Break
10:15 – 11:15 AM
Session
Accelerating Research with SageMaker Unified Studio: From Data to Discovery
Discover how Amazon SageMaker Unified Studio unifies data science operations for academic research teams. Through live demonstrations, see how researchers can streamline data governance, enable seamless collaboration across teams, and accelerate the path from raw data to research insights—all within a single integrated environment that reduces infrastructure complexity.
11:15 – 11:30 AM
Break
Break
11:30 AM – 12:15 PM
Session
Accelerating Discovery with AI Agents and Automation
Discover how AI-powered chat agents and automated research capabilities can help you explore data, generate insights, and accelerate your research workflows—all through natural language conversations. Experience demos showing how Quick Suite transforms complex data analysis into simple questions and answers, enabling researchers to focus on discovery rather than technical implementation.
12:15 – 1:15 PM
Lunch
Networking Lunch
1:15 – 2:15 PM
Session
Getting Started with AWS for Academic Research: Essential Cloud Services and Steps
This interactive session introduces academic researchers to essential AWS services that power modern research computing. Learn about core AWS services for compute, storage, and databases, and discover how these building blocks enable scalable research workflows—from data storage and analysis to high-performance computing. Whether you’re managing genomics data, running simulations, or collaborating across institutions, this session provides the practical knowledge to begin your cloud research journey.

This session is highly recommended for researchers who will be attending Day 2 workshops.
2:15 – 3:30 PM
Open
AWS Office Hour
Come talk to AWS experts about any questions or ideas specific to your research.
Day 2 — April 24 Hands-On Workshops — Bring Your Laptop
💻 Please bring your laptop. Day 2 is hands-on — you’ll be building and experimenting throughout the day.
8:30 – 9:00 AM
Arrival
Check-in & Breakfast
9:00 – 11:15 AM
Workshop
AI-Powered Research Acceleration with Conversational Analytics
Turn research complexity into repeatable, scalable workflows. In this session, you’ll build intelligent agents that surface answers from your own documents, automate multi-step processes so your team spends less time on manual tasks, and visualize key metrics in interactive dashboards — all configured to fit how your research actually runs.
11:15 – 11:30 AM
Break
Break
11:30 AM – 12:30 PM
Concurrent A
Breakout: Accelerating genomics, life sciences and AI approaches with AWS
As omics data volumes continue to grow, researchers need secure, scalable, and efficient solutions for data management and analysis. This session will explore how AWS cloud services can accelerate genomics analysis and life sciences use cases and how researchers are utilizing these approaches to advance their research. We will also discuss how agentic AI is accelerating research in this field and provide practical strategies for implementing these tools effectively.
11:30 AM – 12:30 PM
Concurrent B
Workshop: Building Custom ML Models for Research
Learn how to train, fine-tune, and deploy machine learning models tailored to your research needs using Amazon SageMaker AI’s integrated development environment. This hands-on workshop guides you through the complete ML lifecycle—from data preparation and model experimentation to production deployment—enabling you to build custom AI solutions that address your specific research challenges.
12:30 – 3:30 PM
Open
AWS Office Hour
Come talk to AWS experts about any questions or ideas specific to your research.
Speakers AWS experts and ISU faculty Sessions led by cloud specialists and experienced academic researchers from Amazon Web Services and Iowa State University.
K
Karthik Narasimhan, Ph.D. Leader, Genomics & Life Sciences Amazon Web Services
G
Greg Ritter Leader, Research Data & Libraries Amazon Web Services
N
Niris Okram Sr. Solutions Architect, Academic Research Amazon Web Services
V
Venkatesan Chandrababu Sr. Solutions Architect, Academic Research Amazon Web Services
T
Travis Berkley Solutions Architect Amazon Web Services
J
James Reecy, Ph.D. Professor, Animal Science — Associate Vice President for Research Iowa State University
A
Anuj Sharma, Ph.D. Pitt-Des Moines, Inc. Professor, Civil Engineering — Director FAST-TrAC, Co-Director REACTOR Lab Iowa State University
B
Baskar Ganapathysubramanian, Ph.D. Joseph and Elizabeth Anderlik Professor in Engineering Iowa State University
Registration Reserve your seat This event is free to attend for all Iowa State University researchers, faculty, staff, and students. Registration is required to attend.
📋 Registration is free and open to all ISU researchers, faculty, staff, and students. Use the button below to register, or contact trac@iastate.edu with any questions.

→ Open Registration Form

Join us April 23–24 at Iowa State

Discover how cloud computing and AI can unlock new possibilities in your research — from data to discovery.

Register Now → Explore the Agenda