February 21, 2012
UW students (foreground, from left) Yongtao Cao, Eli Kinney-Lang and (background,
from left) Josh McConnell and Charles Ogden study computer modeling of CO2 as it rises
to the top of the bedrock and reacts with saline. The four students were selected
to participate in a national Cyber-infrastructure (CI) Student Engagement Program,
which begins with an orientation at Clemson University this week. (UW Photo)
Four University of Wyoming students -- tied for the most from any university nationally
-- have been selected to participate in a national Cyber-infrastructure Student Engagement
Program, which begins with an orientation meeting today through Thursday, Feb. 23,
at Clemson University.
Yongtao Cao, a doctoral student in statistics, from Shijiazhuang, China; Eli Kinney-Lang,
a junior majoring in mathematics; Josh McConnell, a senior majoring in chemical engineering
and mathematics; and Charles Ogden, a junior undergraduate majoring in mechanical
engineering, were four of 87 students selected nationwide for the program. Kinney-Lang,
McConnell and Ogden are all from Laramie.
"Yes, other states did have four students," says Barbara Kucera, deputy director,
Center for Computational Sciences at the University of Kentucky. Kentucky and Clemson
have been awarded funds by the National Science Foundation to run the Cyber-infrastructure
Student Engagement Program (CI). "This is a very generous and beneficial experience
for these students who we want to encourage to select science, technology, engineering
and math (STEM) careers."
The program is designed to provide students with an awareness of opportunities arising
from the technology associated with various aspects of cyber-infrastructure. Cyber-infrastructure
is the organized ecosystem of personnel, technology, software and communication infrastructure
that drives current scientific research efforts.
As part of the program, the four UW students will begin a scheduled online training
program through September. Topics will include high-performance computing and high
throughput computing, which includes parallel programming, campus-wide grids, national
grids, virtual organizations, data visualization (mining, management and file systems
storage), networking and cloud services.
Skills learned in this program can provide the students potential opportunities to
conduct research with UW faculty at the National Center for Atmospheric Research-University
of Wyoming Supercomputing Center (NWSC), which is set to open this fall in Cheyenne.
"Knowing how to work with supercomputers matters a lot to me," says McConnell, who
indicated he has a summer internship with NASA, which uses supercomputers extensively.
"Although I will be conducting a lot of surface chemistry there, I definitely want
to do some computer modeling in the future."
Ogden agrees.
"I will be seeing more of this in the future no matter what I do," Ogden says. "High-performance
computing is the future."
By expanding the awareness of, and ability to access and deploy CI resources and services,
UW students will be provided the skills to become CI champions/mentors within UW's
CI community. CI resources and services can be provided on and between campuses; by
federal agencies; as well as through other state, regional, national and international
CI providers.
Kinney-Lang looks at the CI program as an opportunity to expand the use of techniques
he learned in his math-modeling course to conduct more complex modeling with his research,
which centers on how the brain correctly wires itself.
"This training and the workshops will help me improve my programming skills," says
Cao, who conducts theoretical research of different chemical designs, with a goal
of determining the optimum process by looking at various factors and levels. "We'll
be able to visualize our results."
Program participants also will be invited to attend the Super Computing 2012 Conference
in Salt Lake City, Utah, Nov. 10-16. Full travel costs to the conference will be covered
by the National Science Foundation's EPSCoR program, which sponsors the CI Student
Engagement Program. EPSCoR (Experimental Program to Stimulate Competitive Research)
is a federal grant program that enables Wyoming to be nationally competitive in science
and technology
At the conference, students will participate as certified "technical student volunteers"
and assist booths on the exhibit floor. Through that access, students will be able
to learn more about supercomputing and make potential, future employment contacts,
says Bryan Shader, a UW professor of mathematics and special assistant to the vice
president for research.
"They (NSF) want you to experience what's out there in high-performance computing,"
Shader told the four students. "They want to see this program open doors for your
careers and research, and help you find jobs down the road."
