AWS Research Day for UCLA

Sep

–

Oct

2025

7:00PM

10:00PM

A Guide to Agile Event Programs that Can Survive Anything

Explore why the most dynamic leaders are building strategies for agile event marketing with a focus on scaling in-person and virtual events that are fast, flexible, and hyper-effective at driving meaningful connections.

12 pm

Welcome and Introductions

Prapti Gupta is a host of exceptional ability. Studies show that a vast majority of guests attending events by Prapti have been known to leave more elated than visitors to Santa's Workshop, The Lost of Continent of Atlantis, and the Fountain of Youth.

Mackenzie Kosut

Global Startup Evangelist, Amazon Web Services

Checkin

Please arrive at the venue by 9am to check in to the conference.

12 pm

Welcome and Introductions

Engage. Learn. Connect.

AWS Research Day for UCLA

Sep

Oct

2025

7:00PM

10:00PM

EDT

About the event

Join fellow UCLA researchers for a one-day, in-person event (agenda below) to discover how Amazon Web Service (AWS) cloud-powered AI and data platforms can accelerate your research. Learn to analyze research data through natural language queries, automate repetitive workflows, and conduct comprehensive research analysis—all while collaborating seamlessly with your team in secure, shared workspaces.

The training will feature use cases, demos, and hands-on workshops led by cloud experts and experienced researchers. This event introduces essential AWS services and AI-powered research tools through interactive sessions and demonstrations.

Whether you're new to the cloud or looking to optimize your existing cloud-based work, this event will provide the knowledge and skills to take full advantage of cloud computing for your research.

Who should attend:

Researchers, faculty, scientists, and IT professionals. No experience with AWS is required.

Speakers

Davida Johnson

Executive Director, Office of Advanced Research Computing, UCLA

Jiaqi Ma

Professor, Civil & Environmental Engineering Department, UCLA

Paul Tung

Manager, High Performance Computing Platform, UCLA Health

Rami Abdallah

Manager, Bruin Cloud & DevOps Strategy, UCLA

Scott Friedman, Ph.D.

Leader for research computing solutions, AWS

Claudiu Farcas, Ph.D.

Principal Solutions Architect, AWS

Haoxuan Ma

Ph.D. Student, UCLA Mobility Lab

Agenda

8:30AM - 9:00AM

Check-in and breakfast

9:00AM - 9:15AM

Welcome and introduction

Get the day started! Meet your hosts, preview the agenda, and learn how to make the most of today's sessions.

9:15AM - 10:00AM

Research on AWS

Learn how UCLA researchers are using AWS cloud to scale compute, reduce time-to-discovery, and tackle complex research challenges. This session showcases real examples of how cloud infrastructure helps UCLA labs move faster from hypothesis to breakthrough.

10:00AM - 10:30AM

AI/ML tools for research

This session provides an overview of cutting-edge AI/ML services designed to advance and accelerate research. Explore the latest advancements in large language models available through Amazon Bedrock — a fully managed service that gives researchers secure access to a wide range of industry-leading foundation models, all without the need to manage infrastructure.

10:30AM - 10:45AM

Break

10:45AM - 11:30AM

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 Amazon Quick transforms complex data analysis into simple questions and answers, enabling researchers to focus on discovery rather than technical implementation.

11:30AM - 11:45AM

Break

11:45AM - 12:30PM

High performance computing (HPC) and cloud bursting

This session will explore how researchers can leverage cloud bursting to meet the computational requirements of their HPC workloads. We will discuss customer case studies showcasing the successful integration of cloud bursting capabilities into HPC environments, as well as best practices for architecting hybrid cloud solutions that dynamically scale on-premises resources with the cloud.

12:30PM - 1:00PM

Lunch

1:00PM – 1:30PM

Workshop account setup

Set up your AWS workshop account during lunch so you're ready to dive into hands-on labs in the afternoon sessions. Mandatory for afternoon workshop attendees.

1:30PM - 3:30PM

Concurrent workshop sessions

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 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.

Prerequisites: development experience with Python and Jupyter

Kiro for Research: Accelerating Development with AI-Powered Coding

Learn how to use Kiro—an AI-powered IDE and CLI—to accelerate code development, automate repetitive tasks, and build research applications faster. Participants will gain practical experience with spec-driven development, AI agents that understand research workflows, and integration with AWS services through Model Context Protocol (MCP) servers.

Prerequisites: ability to install software (Kiro), familiarity with command line (CLI) tools

3:30PM - 4:30PM

Office hour

Come talk to AWS and campus research experts about any questions or ideas specific to your research.