NSF Award
1531923
This project, acquiring a high performance computer cluster, aims to enable discipline-specific and inter-disciplinary computing intensive scientific research in the areas of, but not limited to, chemical physics, material science, bioinformatics, ecological research, genomic research, morphological sciences, ocean modeling, mathematical cognition analysis, and many more. It will also be used for the education of new generation computational researchers. The instrument will be used by more than 12-faculty members from Physics, Mathematics, Biological Sciences, Materials Engineering, Psychology and Community Health, and, will impact hundreds of students in the STEM disciplines.<br/><br/>Numerous discipline-specific and interdisciplinary research programs will leverage this instrument to further their research goals. Efforts in computational chemical physics provide insights into new mechanisms to improve combustion modeling. Materials modeling, methods and software development will generate improved ways to model device failures. Microfiltration, nanofluidics research, and, 3D ocean modeling will advance oil exploration research. High-throughput annotation and analysis of large-scale microbial ecology data will provide insight into the role of gut microbes in human health, and prediction models for craniofacial growth will improve current practices within clinical orthodontics. This instrument strongly impacts the integration of research into STEM education, thus, providing an intellectual platform for researchers and students. The cluster will be the primary educational tool for WSU's newly developed Interdisciplinary Applied Science and Mathematics PhD program, potentially impacting hundreds of students at both the undergraduate and graduate levels across many disciplines. It will be the first of its kind in the Dayton region to provide education and training on the basic tools and techniques of multiprocessor computing for computational scientists A student-centered, research-based, pragmatic multi-disciplinary course, co-taught by the proposal team, based on an investigative learning approach will provide an educational platform for teaching computational concepts and tools for applying numerical methods in STEM research. The project contributes to developing a computationally skilled workforce, thus, building a stronger computing community at WSU and strengthening WSU's partnerships in computing education with other universities in the area. Access to the cluster benefits efforts to develop and deploy computational/computing-infused courses and consequently broadens participation in the area of scientific
