NSF Award
2320373
NSF Major Research and User Facilities like Cornell High Energy Synchrotron Source (CHESS) enable research in a variety of science and engineering areas. These facilities provide instruments, data, modeling, computing, and physical capabilities to the broad community of researchers, engineers, students, educators, and the public. However, effectively utilizing the computing capabilities and data resources offered both by the scientific facilities themselves and by the national computing and data services, has been a steep challenge for scientists. The lack of computing and data expertise prevents the scientific community from fully harnessing the power of these capabilities to expeditiously transform data into insights and knowledge. This project develops an innovative training program for the community of scientists using the CHESS synchrotron X-ray facility, who conduct research in materials science, physics, chemistry, biology, environmental science, and other domains. The training materials and associated training activities help reduce barriers to the use of CHESS instruments, data, and tools and enable scientists to effectively utilize the national computing resources and services, such as those offered by the NSF. The project increases computing skills, awareness, and literacy for researchers with limited computing expertise, thereby accelerating the scientific innovations in synchrotron X-ray science.<br/><br/><br/>Lack of focused cyberinfrastructure (CI) training opportunities often makes it difficult for scientists to harness the full potential of the instruments, data, tools, and CI resources offered by large scientific user facilities like the Cornell High Energy Synchrotron Source (CHESS) and by the broader NSF ecosystem of CI resources and services. The X-CITE project brings together PIs with expertise in CI as well as X-ray and related domain sciences to develop an innovative training program targeting the X-ray science user community. The training program covers five relevant thematic areas: programming essentials, systems fundamentals, distributed computing with the CI ecosystem, X-ray science software, and issues of data curation and FAIR. These are offered in a multitude of modes like self-paced training with notebooks, videos, and CI catalogs, office hours, in-person instruction sessions, CHESS user workshops, and tutorials at domain conferences. X-CITE promotes community building by developing a coordination network comprising (a) different domain science communities that leverage X-ray facilities, (b) similar user facilities, and (c) national CI resource providers, to disseminate and socialize the training materials, to communicate the CI needs for the X-ray science community, and to exchange best practices for CI training. The X-CITE training program reduces time-to-science for this important scientific community and democratizes access by accelerating adoption of CI tools and resources available both internally at CHESS and from the NSF CI ecosystem. X-CITE increases CI skills, awareness, and literacy for X-ray science researchers, positively impacting trainees with limited CI expertise, from underrepresented communities, and representing a multitude of scientific disciplines.<br/><br/>This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.
