REU Site: Interdisciplinary Program in High Performance Computing

University Of Maryland Baltimore County, Baltimore MD

Investigators

Abstract

The REU Site: Interdisciplinary Program in High Performance Computing in the Department of Mathematics and Statistics at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC) is an eight-week residential summer program for undergraduate students majoring in mathematics, statistics, or computer science. This REU Site uses activities that can be grouped into three principal components to develop skills of the future workforce: (1) Structured training in a certificate program teaches fundamental skills in high performance computing through lectures and TA-supported computer labs, with specific tools of Linux, C, MPI, MATLAB, and R. (2) The skills in scientific, statistical, and parallel computing are applied to interdisciplinary research projects posed by scientists from industry, government agencies, or departments outside of mathematics and statistics. (3) The teaching and research are supported by a complete set of highly integrated professional development activities, including team work experience, presentation skills (poster, oral, project update, and 'elevator pitch'), writing skills (abstracts, webpage, and technical report), discussion of professional integrity in the sciences, topical field trips to local employers or computing centers such as the NSA, NASA, or NIH, information on graduate school application and a GRE preparation course, and opportunities for informal contact with faculty, graduate students, and visitors to the program. All aspects of the program are conducted by student teams, which is one of the most important experiences participants take away from the program. Scientific, statistical, and parallel computing skills are critical to the 21st century workforce. Equally crucial are skills in interacting and communicating in teams, and working on interdisciplinary projects. This REU Site will provide a comprehensive program integrating these elements under the guidance of the faculty mentors and graduate assistants, many of whom have extensive experience with client-focused interdisciplinary consulting through the Center for Interdisciplinary Research and Consulting (circ.umbc.edu). The high performance computing environment will be provided by a state-of-the-art distributed-memory cluster in the NSF-supported UMBC High Performance Computing Facility (hpcf.umbc.edu). Its current cluster maya has 240 nodes with modern multi-core CPUs and includes hybrid nodes with state-of-the-art massively parallel GPUs designed for scientific computing as well as cutting-edge 60-core Intel Phi accelerators. The REU Site participants will benefit from a complete professional development experience involving scientific, statistical, and parallel computing, interdisciplinary research projects, and integrated development of professional skills. These skills are of vital importance to the workforce of tomorrow and for the national competitiveness of the United States. The site is supported by the Department of Defense in partnership with the NSF REU program.