REU Site: High Performance Computing with Engineering Applications

This award renews the support to a highly successful Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) Site at Clarkson University, Potsdam, New York for a second three-year period. This site focuses on High Performance Computing (HPC) with engineering applications, an area that is critical to national security, scientific discovery, and technological innovation. To maintain the U.S.’s leadership in this area, talented students with advanced training in HPC software development are urgently needed to fully unleash the power of HPC. Thus, the goal of this project is to encourage 30 talented undergraduate students to pursue graduate study and careers in HPC by engaging them in exciting, ongoing research projects and by cultivating their talents during a ten-week summer research experience and beyond. The research projects available for students are highly innovative, sharing the common theme of societally relevant engineering applications that originate from diverse engineering disciplines, including mechanical and aerospace engineering, chemical engineering, civil engineering, electrical and computer engineering, software engineering, and applied mathematics. There are targeted efforts to recruit students underrepresented in HPC careers or who might otherwise be unable to participate in academic research, such as historically minority colleges and universities. Emphasis is placed on attracting underrepresented minorities and female students. The processes used to recruit, select, and onboard students incorporate proven best practices in support of research experiences for undergraduates. Faculty advisors with expertise in HPC applications mentor the students to be researchers by providing them with specialized training in the design and development of HPC applications that are rooted in highly engaging engineering innovations. This specialized training provides the students with the highly valuable technical and analytical skills that will benefit them in future pursuits such as graduate study or industry work. The quality of this training is further enhanced by additional professional development activities such as an HPC crash course, field trips, invited speakers, weekly group research meetings, and a mentor training workshop for faculty advisors. All student participants will be given the opportunity to attend and present in professional conferences. The PIs plan to disseminate their experience of delivering the REU Site through educational research publications. 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.