CC* Planning: Developing a Plan to Improve Research Computing at Christopher Newport University

Christopher Newport University, Newport News VA

Investigators

Abstract

The aims of this project are to develop and publish a five-year cyberinfrastructure plan for scientific computing at Christopher Newport University (CNU). The past decade has seen CNU dramatically increase its research capabilities and impact, however the computing resources used are often not accessible to the wider campus. A unified computing plan, which includes the creation of a scientific computing cluster, is needed to support CNU’s research programs and to provide resources to faculty across the university. In collaboration with IT services, we are identifying the computing resources necessary to meet research needs and estimating the infrastructure required to support those resources. The end goal of this project is to develop a plan for comprehensive scientific computing infrastructure at CNU that will support existing research, enable researchers to expand into new fields, and allow CNU to contribute to national cyberinfrastructure by providing new resources to the Open Science Grid. CNU is a primarily undergraduate institution that has a significant focus on student involvement in research. Research areas that are heavy users of computational resources include experimental nuclear physics, gravitational wave astronomy, natural language processing, other applications of artificial intelligence to data science, and mathematical simulation. Through the improved cyberinfrastructure supported by this work, students will have significantly improved opportunities to engage in research that both expands the forefront of our understanding of science and explores the use of emerging technologies. Women and underrepresented students are specifically supported and encouraged to engage in these research opportunities through several CNU's initiatives. 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.