NSF Award
1505413
Research Initiation Awards (RIAs) provide support for junior faculty at Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) who are starting to build a research program, as well as for mid-career faculty who need to re-direct and re-build a research program. It is expected that the award helps to further the faculty member's research capability and effectiveness, improves research and teaching at the researcher's home institution, and involves undergraduate students in research experiences.<br/><br/>The University of Maryland-Eastern Shore (UMES) holds the advantage of being the only institution that offers engineering programs in the entire eastern shore area of Maryland. The HBCU-RIA is aimed at improving future computing systems, particularly through research on supercomputer system design. The project addresses an innovative Optical Network-on-Chip (ONoC) architecture that can be dynamically reconfigured to meet various application needs. This new architecture, the Ouroboros Network, features a generalized open-topology structure that can be reconfigured to any Eulerian Cycle based network. <br/><br/>In addition to contributing to UMES's research capability in computer science and engineering, the project will integrate research and education by promoting undergraduate STEM education more broadly through its dissemination efforts. Dissemination activities include a project website, STEM conference presentations, and published papers. Furthermore, the project will contribute to STEM courses and curricula in computer engineering by integrating the research into course teaching and the senior capstone design. Undergraduate and high school students will also be incorporated into related research through programs such as the area's active REU (Research Experiences for Undergraduates) and AEOP (Army Educational Outreach Program) activities.
