Cybertraining: Implementation: Small: CIberCATSS, A Comprehensive, Applied and Tangible CyberInfrastructure Summer School in Southeastern Wisconsin

University Of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, Milwaukee WI

Investigators

Abstract

Computing is an important part of modern research in many diverse areas, but comprehensive knowledge of how to apply computing and cyberinfrastructure (CI) to research problems is lacking both in the undergraduate and graduate curriculum. This lack of knowledge puts scientists at the beginning of their careers at a severe disadvantage and reduces the overall national research productivity. The project based at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and partner institutes aims to address this major issue by presenting a project-based summer school in cyberinfrastructure for diverse research domains, called CIberCATSS. The participants in the school gain comprehensive knowledge of computing and its application to state-of-the-art research questions. The participants become superbly trained members of the national STEM workforce, advancing the national welfare and ensuring future prosperity. By training students with diverse backgrounds, the project will also improve the diversity and quality of the STEM workforce. The CIberCATSS program trains a competitively-selected group of summer students in advanced computation and cyberinfrastructure in the context of specific research problems. The seven-week summer school starts with three weeks of formal instruction in computing that ranges from basic programming to machine learning. The material is delivered in person and is captured for later dissemination on the web. This instruction is followed by four weeks of a short-term computational project where students apply the gained knowledge in a research context. In doing so, the learned material is placed in a disciplinary context and gaps in knowledge of how to apply the learned material to research problems are addressed. Progress both in learning and in the execution of the project is ensured by a combination of one-on-one time with domain experts and a low student-to-teaching assistant ratio. Participants in the program develop a rock-solid foundation in computing and cyberinfrastructure and apply this knowledge in a research context during the summer workshop and in their future research careers. 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.