“CyberInfrastructure: Challenges and Opportunities for

Undergraduate Education”

Roscoe Giles

June 13, 2005

Challenge #1 …

Workshop projects show how “less is more”

Can Cyberinfrastructure

projects avoid showing that “more is less”?

You can help!

Outline

• Computing and Computational Science• Cyberinfrastructure (CI)• People: (EOT-PACI, EPIC)• Resources/References

(Challenges throughout!)

Computational Science:Interdisciplinary Research and Education

Science DisciplinePhysics, Chemistry, Biology, etc.

Computer ScienceHardware/Software

Applied MathematicsNumerical Analysis, Modeling,

Simulation

Abstraction & Information

Information

Abs

trac

tion

“Pencil & Paper Math”

Large ScaleSimulations

Understanding?

Cyberinfrastructure

BackgroundHistory

Examples

What is Supercomputing?Leading Edge to Consumer Electronics

1985 Cray X-MP: 1.2 Gflop

Cost:$8,000,000

60,000 watts of power

No Built in Graphics

56 kbps NSFnet Backbone

2005 X-Box: ~5 Gflop peak

Cost: $140

~100 watts of power

3D Graphics (125M P/S)

(100 Mbps etherNet)

CI Vision

Atkins Report (NSF)

Some CI Project LinksNSF Shared Cyberinfrastructure (SCI)

http://www.nsf.gov/div/index.jsp?div=SCI

TeraGrid http://www.teragrid.org

Open Science Grid http://www.opensciencegrid.org/

Access Grid http://www.accessgrid.org

High Productivity Computing Systems

http://www.highproductivity.org/

Advanced Simulation and Computing

http://www.sandia.gov/NNSA/ASC/

Some Science Examples

GADU/GNARE Uses TeraGrid For Protein Sequence Analysis (2.3 Million sequences in 8.5 days)

Neutron Star Spin-Up Discovered with 3D Simulations on Cray X-1 (600 Million Zones)(video)

Math optimizes kidney matches for pair donation (Sommer Gentry, CSGF Fellow)

Complex Networks

Error Analysis and Simulations of Complex Phenomena

Teragrid News http://www.teragrid.org/news/index.html

Scientific Discovery through Advanced Computation

http://www.scidac.org/

Supercomputing http://www.sc-conference.org

People and CI

History

“EOT-PACI has created and sustained a collaborative community of computational science researchers and educators with common goals and leveraged resources. Few of these partners had interacted, much less collaborated, prior to the grant.”

Project Categories (Brochure)–Professional Development–Mentoring–Learning Material Development–Software and Online Information –Youth Programs–Diversity/Accessibility–Conferences/Collaborative

Experiences–Metrics & Evaluation–Online Guides and Reports

EPIC Goal

to build human capacity by creating awareness of the opportunities afforded through Cyberinfrastructure and by educating and training a diverse group of people in all stages of life from K-12 to professional practice to fully participate in the Cyberinfrastructure community as developers, users, and leaders.

EPIC Chart

EPIC Partners• BioQuest Curriculum

Consortium• Boston University• Coalition to Diversify

Computing (CDC)• Computing Research

Associates • Committee on the Status of

Women in Computing Research (CRA-W)

• Florida International University• University of Kentucky• The Math Forum at Drexel• Maryland Virtual High School

• National Center for Supercomputing Applications

• Oregon State University• Ohio Supercomputer Center• Rice University• San Diego Supercomputer

Center• San Diego State University• Shodor Education Foundation,

Inc.• SUNY Brockport• Texas Advanced Computing

Center• University of Wisconsin-

Madison

Virtual Institutes

• On-line venues for partners and participants to meet to share ideas and work toward common goals.

• Current EPIC VI’s (in formation):– Computational science curriculum – Visualization in Education– MSI Consortium Research– Women and Girls and CI– Access Grid in Education

Resources

www.eotepic.org

Some Education Resources

EPIC & partners http://www.eotepic.org

BioQuest http://www.bioquest.org

Shodor NCSI: http://www.computationalscience.org/

CSERD: http://www.shodor.org/refdesk/index.php

Krell Institute Graduate FellowsUndergraduate

Challenges

• Large scale future funding?

• National impact

• Philosophical Question: what should we teach/what will they learn?