Computational Infusion for Missouri Undergraduate Science and Education (CIMUSE) Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

The planning grant was provided by the National Science Foundation (NSF) under the 2021 Campus Cyberinfrastructure (CC) Area 5 – Planning Grant program. The grant is intended to inform faculty from Missouri’s primarily undergraduate institutions (PUIs) about the use of shared high-performance computing (HPC) and a robust network infrastructure and to identify motivated faculty to work with one or two “first wave” proposal teams to develop grant proposals for next year’s CC program.

If you are interested and aren’t sure if someone from your institution is registered, reach out to info@more.net to learn more.

It is up to each institution to designate two individuals to attend the workshop and understand how a funded grant proposal could positively affect student learning and faculty/student research. If the data science department lives in the business college instead of Arts and Sciences, the institution can still designate them as an attendee. If the institution feels the biggest obstacle to the adoption of computationally-intensive student experiences is the impact on the campus IT infrastructure, they can designate one of their IT staff to attend the workshop. Each PUI should designate two attendees who will best inform their institution and work to bring a shared set of resources to their institution through a successful grant proposal.

Chip Byers (Grant PI) chip@more.net
Marcus Bond (Grant Co-PI) mbond@semo.edu
Jeff Woodford (unofficial Co-PI) jwoodford@missouriwestern.edu

There are three main funded activities covered by the grant:

1. Costs of the workshop: for each designated participant coming to the workshop, the grant will offer paid lodging at the designated workshop hotel for the night of August 1, lunch and an evening reception August 1, breakfast, and lunch on August 2. The grant will also provide a $100 travel stipend to cover travel costs for each attendee.
2. Costs to travel to first-wave PUIs and help campus IT develop a campus cyberinfrastructure plan (CI plan) which is required by all NSF CC* grant proposals.
3. Grant writer to assist with first-wave proposals: with one or two proposal teams providing the science drivers and broader Impact statements for the proposal with letters of commitment from campus principals, campus IT leadership, and external entities; and the CI Plan; the grant writer will edit the materials into a consistent form and assemble the proposal package

Overview

We propose the construction of a high-performance computing (HPC) cluster for scientific and educational use at primarily undergraduate institutions (PUIs) in Missouri. Ongoing advancements in supercomputing technologies, big data and machine learning and artificial intelligence techniques have led to a merger of HPC with scientific, engineering and data science applications. Many scientific projects inevitably require access to large-scale HPC clusters, beyond what is available with personal computers, to tackle large data sets and simulations. This makes it vital for STEM students to be exposed to HPC resources and receive hands-on experience as early as possible. It is estimated that 40 percent of bachelor’s degrees in STEM fields are bestowed by PUIs, which tend to have significantly fewer resources available than graduate research institutions, and thus students tend to graduate without having any experience with computational resources beyond their personal laptops, nor the chance to participate in computationally intensive research projects. To address this, we propose establishing an HPC cluster that may be utilized by PUIs across the state of Missouri, to be used both in undergraduate coursework and to push the bounds of scientific research performed at these institutions. With this consortium, we will be able to achieve more to develop the STEM talent pool than what each individual institution is able to achieve independently.

Intellectual Merit

Our initial projects include vibronic coupling in cyclic organic molecules, astrophysical simulations of extragalactic objects, phase stability of crystalline materials, cybersecurity and genetics.

In the field of extragalactic astronomy, we will study the coevolution of black holes and their host galaxies, with particular emphasis on black hole formation and mergers, and the emission of gravitational waves. These areas are well suited to computationally intensive study, and are especially relevant given the upcoming launch of NASA’s LISA satellites, for which we will be providing detection predictions.

In the field of computational chemistry, we will study the distortion of symmetric molecules away from their high-symmetry state via the Pseudo Jahn-Teller Effect. These computations can give deep quantum-mechanical insight into the nature of molecular symmetry.

In the field of solid-state chemistry, we will use DFT plane wave calculations to generate unique insight into the anomalous thermal and magnetic behavior of hybrid organic-inorganic systems, particularly for hybrid layered perovskites. These systems are especially relevant for solar energy conversion and a transition to a carbon-free economy.

We also note that over the lifespan of the HPC (and beyond the timeframe of the CC* grant), we will push to increase the use of the HPC  within our institutions and by bringing more PUIs into the consortium, which will expand the intellectual and scientific merit beyond the initial set of projects described here.

Broader Impacts

To improve STEM students’ pedagogical experience and provide them with HPC skills which will suit them well in both graduate schools and industry careers, we propose directly incorporating HPC use into the classroom: students will use HPC resources to perform computational projects, using cutting-edge data from large datasets (e.g., using cutting edge astronomical simulations and observational data).

For use in data science classes, we shall develop an open-source virtual data science lab (VDSL) to support these goals and provide a community of data science contributors to use this shared platform. We believe that a shared HPC cluster can offer unique data science educational opportunities while also being simple for instructors and students.

Finally, we propose to fill the HPC talent pipeline by offering scholarships to eligible undergraduate students to attend hands-on training on HPC systems and bring this expertise back to consortium members.

PI: Jeffrey Woodford, Missouri Western State University (MWSU),
Co-PI: Marcus Bond, Southeast Missouri State University (SEMO),
Co-PI: Collin DeGraf, Truman State University,
Co-PI: Xiaoyuan Suo, Webster University, and
Chip Byers, Missouri Research and Education Network (MOREnet)

There are several:

1. The hotel block closes July 17. All reservations must be made at that time.
2. The CIMUSE Planning Workshop is scheduled noon, Aug. 1 to noon, Aug. 2, 2023.
3. Full proposals are due Sept. 11, 2023. The 2022 submission window closed June 27. The 2021 CC* program had two submission windows March 1 and October 11.