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A Message from CISE Leadership
In this month’s newsletter, I am thrilled to share exciting news about the establishment of the NSF-funded Leadership-Class Computing Facility (LCCF) at the Texas Advanced Computer Center (TACC). LCCF marks a significant milestone in NSF’s ongoing commitment to advance scientific research and innovation.
The LCCF is an advanced computing facility that will serve as a hub for world-class computational and storage capabilities, human expertise, software, services and educational programs. It is designed to enable breakthrough discoveries for the nation’s most critical research challenges, transform our response to natural disasters and revolutionize our understanding of the world.
To maximize its impact, the LCCF will partner with four distributed science centers, enhancing the facility’s reach and distributing its storage and compute capabilities across the country. These centers include the Atlanta University Center Consortium, the National Center for Supercomputing Applications at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, the Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center and the San Diego Supercomputer Center. These partnerships will leverage the existing expertise at these centers, broadening access to the facility and ensuring that more researchers can benefit from its resources.
While the LCCF will indeed support artificial intelligence (AI) research, its primary mission is to serve the broader science and research (S&E) community, distinguished by its unique capabilities and comprehensive services. At the heart of this project is Horizon, a hybrid CPU/GPU system that will facilitate simulation-based inquiry, data analytics, and AI research at unprecedented scales. Horizon's substantial compute capabilities and extensive all-flash storage system make it one of the most powerful data analytics instruments of its kind worldwide.
Beyond its impressive hardware, the LCCF will deploy a wide range of software and services to advance scientific discovery, support new usage modes, and expand the science and engineering communities that benefit from this resource. These services are designed to enable time-critical and life-saving decision-making applications, essential for responding to natural disasters and global pandemics. Additionally, the LCCF will support the entire scientific data lifecycle, from end-to-end workflows and data visualization to AI training and inferencing.
Moreover, the LCCF project encompasses a wide range of education and public outreach activities aimed at growing the future S&E workforce and ensuring nationwide access to the facility’s benefits. These programs, based at a visitor center to be constructed at TACC, will be piloted, assessed, and evolved during construction, with a focus on reaching audiences nationwide through virtual access.
The LCCF represents a monumental step forward for the scientific community, providing the tools and resources necessary to tackle our most pressing research challenges. We look forward to the groundbreaking discoveries that will undoubtedly emerge from this world-class facility.
We hope you enjoy this month’s newsletter.
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Greg Hager
Assistant Director for CISE
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Funding Opportunities and Deadlines
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Design for Environmental Sustainability in Computing (DESC).
Supports foundational research addressing the substantial environmental impacts of computing. Projects should surpass studies of energy efficiency alone, pursuing dramatic improvements to overall sustainability.
Full proposal deadlines:
September 13, 2024. Type I small projects and Type II large projects.
January 1 to December 31, 2024. Type III workshop projects.
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 NSF EPSCoR Graduate Fellowship Program.
Aims to enhance the capacity and competitiveness of EPSCoR jurisdictions by providing funding to graduate degree-awarding institutions to support NSF EPSCoR Graduate Fellows as they pursue graduate degrees.
Full proposal deadline:
October 2, 2024.
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 NSF Graduate Research Fellowship Program.
Supports outstanding graduate students who are pursuing full-time research-based master's and doctoral degrees in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) or in STEM education.
Full proposal deadline:
October 18, 2024, for computer and information science and engineering communities.
Multiple deadlines for other fields.
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 NAIRR Pilot opportunity for researchers and educators open.
Researchers and educators can access online interactive notebooks to use in classrooms or student projects, as well as an array of resources supported by the government and private sectors.
Proposals will be reviewed on an ongoing monthly cycle.
Requests submitted by the 15th of the month will be reviewed and their outcome decided by the end of the month.
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News & Announcements
The U.S. National Science Foundation announces the launch of a new initiative that will invest in the development of artificial intelligence-ready test beds, a critical infrastructure designed to propel responsible AI research and innovation forward.
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Simulations on Stampede2, a supercomputer funded by the NSF at TACC enables simulations and predictions of thermal performance for a resilient and sustainable electric grid.
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NSF announces a new investment to advance privacy-enhancing technologies and promote their use to solve real-world problems.
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Researchers at the University of Washington are using the NSF-funded Bridges-2 supercomputer at the Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center to illustrate how different anatomical structures in the head of toothed whales could affect sound features arriving at the animals’ ears.
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NSF-funded researchers at the Minnesota Interactive Robotics and Vision Laboratory are developing advanced AI-powered autonomous underwater vehicles to collect data, provide insights into species distribution, and create habitat maps to understand marine environmental drivers.
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Tanya Berger-Wolf, professor and computer scientist at The Ohio State University shares how she is using technology to extract information from images in the field of imageomics.
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Get more CISE News
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Jeff Gray is a professor in the Department of Computer Science at the University of Alabama and director of the Randall Research Scholars Program. His research focuses on software engineering, domain-specific languages and computer science (CS) education.
Over the course of his research career, Gray has received several NSF awards. These include an NSF Faculty Early Career Development Program award, which supported his pioneering research in domain-specific languages and software engineering. The project introduced a new approach called Model Transformation by Demonstration (MTBD), which enabled non-programmers to perform model transformations and enhance productivity and correctness in software modeling. The development of MTBD and related tools represented a significant advancement in model transformation techniques, influencing both academic research and industrial practices. In this research area, Jeff serves as the co-Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Software and Systems Modeling.
Another significant grant, an NSF CE21 Computer Science for All (CSforAll) award, aimed to integrate computer science education into K-12 curricula. The project’s goals included recruiting and training teachers in a computer science pathway, leading to the AP CS Principles state teaching credential. This initiative continues to be crucial for addressing the shortage of qualified CS teachers, expanding access to CS education, and ensuring that secondary education students are better prepared for future STEM careers. Gray’s current NSF CSforAll support includes a new focus on preparing pre-service teacher candidates (i.e., students in Colleges of Education) to be certified CS teachers before they begin their teaching career.
Gray and colleagues from Tuskegee University and Oakland University, along with Haynie Research and Evaluation, have been broadening participation in computing through an NSF ITEST project called LEGACY, which provides a year-long preparatory experience for Black females in Alabama enrolled in the College Board’s AP Computer Science Principles course. His most recent grant is an extension of LEGACY that brings its concept to Mississippi (with Mississippi State University and Jackson State University) and Ohio (with Cleveland State University and Central State University).
“The NSF funding has been instrumental in my career, providing the resources necessary to explore innovative ideas and engage in meaningful research collaborations. It has been pivotal in propelling my research and educational initiatives, enabling us to develop new technologies and approaches that have a lasting impact on both the academic community and K-12 education, while shaping the future of computer science education nationwide.
Gray chairs the Alabama Governor’s Computer Science Advisory Committee, which authored a report that informed the “Computer Science for Alabama Act,” which requires all K-12 schools in the state to offer computer science courses.
Gray's research has resulted in many widely cited publications, contributing to advancements in software engineering and computer science education. His paper on learnable programming with blocks-based programming languages, published in Communications of the ACM, has been cited extensively and serves as a foundational work in the field.
He holds a doctorate in computer science from the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at Vanderbilt University and Bachelor of Science and Master of Science degrees in computer science from West Virginia University. In addition to his research, Gray is deeply committed to education and outreach. He leads the Randall Research Scholars Program at the University of Alabama, mentoring undergraduate students in research projects that span various disciplines. His outreach efforts include organizing the Alabama Robotics Competition and conducting summer camps to inspire middle and high school students to pursue careers in STEM fields. He also organizes the NCWIT Aspirations Award for the state of Alabama. His dedication to improving computer science education is also evident in his collaborative efforts such as serving as co-chair of the College Board’s Development Committee for AP CS Principles.
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Division of Information and Intelligent Systems (IIS)
Supports research and education on the interrelated roles of people, computers, and information to advance knowledge of artificial intelligence, data management, assistive technologies, and human-centered computing.
Office of Advanced Cyberinfrastructure (OAC)
Supports the conceptualization, design, implementation, and operation of research cyberinfrastructure to advance and transform research and education in science and engineering.
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