CC* Regional Computing: Development of Undergraduate High-Performance Computing Capacity with the CIMUSE Consortium

Four Primarily Undergraduate Institutions (PUIs), Missouri Western State University, Truman State University, Webster University, and Southeast Missouri State University, in the Computational Infusion for Missouri Undergraduate Science and Education (CIMUSE) consortium, provide high-performance computing (HPC) nodes for undergraduate research and education, with accessible state- and nation-wide resources as job sizes grow. University of Missouri Research Support Solutions manages the nodes on a day-to-day basis, allowing the participating institutions to focus on expanding computational usage at their respective campuses and other undergraduate institutions statewide. Talented students learn about HPC at summer workshops. Faculty also increase their knowledge and skills in the use of HPC. The goal is to establish and expand a statewide community using advanced computational techniques for undergraduate research and education that can be replicated nationwide. The HPC compute nodes (2xAMD EPYC 7713, 2.0 GHz, 128 core/node, 512 GB RAM/node) for the CIMUSE Consortium provide HPC resources to PUIs in Missouri. Research projects will involve undergraduate student researchers, while educational projects focus on developing tools and pedagogies to train students in computational techniques. Initial research projects encompass cosmological simulations, pseudo-Jahn-Teller Effect studies, organic-inorganic perovskite hybrid simulations, rapid intrusion detection, and transposable genomics. Initial education projects involve constructing a Virtual Data Science Lab, incorporating simulations into undergraduate astronomy classes, and introducing cybersecurity exercises to the computer science curriculum. The HPC system will be managed by the Research Support Solutions (RSS) team at the University of Missouri - Columbia, increasing access for the undergraduate community. 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.