July 27, 2018 — Five researchers from American universities will work with cyberinfrastructure and high-performance computing experts from XSEDE and U.S. research teams to tackle real-world science and engineering projects over the next year in the 2018 Campus Champions Fellows program.

The 2018 cadre are current XSEDE Campus Champions, a collection of faculty, staff and researchers at over 200 U.S. institutions who advise others on their local campus on the use of high-end cyberinfrastructure, and have been doing so for the past 10 years. The goal of the Campus Champions Fellows program is to increase expertise on campuses by including Campus Champions as partners in XSEDE’s Extended Collaborative Support Services (ECSS) projects, which provide vital domain expertise to interested researchers.

Peter Hawrylak, University of Tulsa, “Workforce Development: Education”
Abstract: The XSEDE education program seeks to expand a capable and innovative advanced digital resource workforce across the country by providing access to example programs, course syllabi, and computational science education materials as well as guidance from XSEDE’s education staff. Through the education program, Champions may propose a project to help create a formal undergraduate or graduate minor, concentration, or certificate program at their institution. This requires working with the faculty to identify the courses that would be part of such a program, locating and testing computational projects that would become parts of those courses, and working with the appropriate academic committees to prepare the materials needed to obtain program approval.

Chet Langin, Southern Illinois University at Carbondale, “Understanding sustainability issues in the global farm-food system using a global gridded model of agriculture”
Abstract: The challenge of attaining sustainability in the global farm-food system is quite daunting. By 2050, global population is expected to reach 9.7 billion persons placing further pressure on global agriculture. If left unchecked, extensive expansion in the global farm-food system could encroach on hotspots of threatened natural systems resulting in greater clearing of key forestlands and unsustainable withdrawals of water for irrigation. Climate change further compounds this problem as extreme temperature and precipitation dampens crop yields within and across countries. To untangle the complex food and environmental issues faced by the world’s farm-food system, we developed a global gridded computational model of agriculture (SIMPLE-G: a Simplified International Model of agricultural Prices Land use and the Environment). This agricultural model is open-source, geospatial (around 36,000+ grid cells) and flexible enough to accommodate a wide variety of interdisciplinary assessment (climate impacts, water scarcity, biodiversity, terrestrial carbon stocks and food security). We have a version of the model implemented as a HUBzero tool and is hosted on MyGeoHub (https://mygeohub.org).

Xinlian Liu, Hood College, “Interoperating CyberGIS and HydroShare for Scalable Geospatial and Hydrologic Sciences”
Abstract: CyberGIS and HydroShare are two NSF Sustainable Software Integration (SSI) projects that support separate but closely related domain science areas. Both projects move computation off the desktop into advanced cyberinfrastructure based on service-oriented architecture enabling computation on big data, avoiding platform dependency and software installation requirements and serving as gateways to high performance computing. Interoperability between the two systems will enable the coupling of data and multi-scale and multidisciplinary modeling capabilities from both communities and empower scalable geospatial and hydrologic sciences. As both projects grow to integrate big data analytics and advanced modeling capabilities, we face two major challenges in interoperability: 1. How to establish a user environment that seamlessly integrates distributed data, software, and computation from both CyberGIS and HydroShare in a sandbox where users can focus on domain research? 2. How to achieve interoperability features as extensible, reproducible, and reusable software solutions for scalable development, deployment, and operation in order to support broader collaboration of various multidisciplinary research in our communities?

Gil Speyer, Arizona State University, “Simulation for 2D Semiconductor with Parallel Uniform and Adaptive Multigrid Method for Multi-component Phase Field Crystal Models”
Abstract: Two-dimensional (2D) semiconductors and their heterostructures hold promise to yield revolutionary new technologies, ranging from nanosized transistors and efficient light emitting diodes to highly sensitive chemical sensors. 2D materials exhibit unique properties due to confinement in the third dimension. To fully exploit them, it is essential to develop techniques for growing large-area films while precisely controlling the nano/microscale morphology and defects. But due to the difficulty in fully characterizing such systems in atomic scale, fundamental understanding of the relation between these properties and the growing condition remains unclear. Computational modeling is essential in the research for filling this gap. However, current state- of-the-art methods are not well suited for the evolution of 2D materials growths on the mesocale during growth while reflecting the influence of atomic-scale interaction. We devised highly efficient parallel multigrid solver with P3DFFT, and implemented it to simulate large scale HCP crystal modeled by the structural phase field crystal (XPFC) model. We also devised advanced data processing and visualization algorithm for the XPFC model. We are pursuing the following objectives: 1) improve the efficiency of the parallel multigrid solver further by implementing the MPI/OpenMP hybrid technique and adapting intel KNL many-core architecture; 2) conduct large scale simulation for the XPFC model and multi-component phase field crystal (PFC) model for 3D advanced materials such as the hexagonal close-packed (HCP) crystal and graphene, and analyze the result with data processing and visualization algorithm; 3) investigate novel visualization technique for 3D atomistic data with custom rendering system; 4) develop parallel adaptive multigrid solver.

Mohammed Tanash, New Mexico State University, “Cyberinfrastructure Resource Integration”
Abstract: The XSEDE Cyberinfrastructure Integration (XCI) team seeks Campus Champions Fellowship applications for projects in bridging activities between a local campus or campuses and XSEDE resources. These can include creating workflow submission systems that send jobs to XSEDE Service Provider resources from campus, the creation of shared virtual compute facilities that allow jobs to be executed on multiple resources, data management for researchers with Globus Connect, the creation of local XSEDE Compatible Cluster Systems, or other projects that utilize tools which reduce barriers for scaling analyses from campuses to national cyberinfrastructure.

Accepted Fellows, with the support of their home institution, make a 400-hour time commitment and are paid a stipend to allow them to focus time and attention on these collaborations. The program also includes funding for two visits, each ranging from one to two weeks, to an ECSS, PI or conference site to enhance the collaboration.

For more information on the XSEDE Campus Champions Fellows program, including all past cohorts, visit: https://www.xsede.org/ccfellows.

About XSEDE

The Extreme Science and Engineering Discovery Environment, more commonly known as XSEDE, is an NSF-funded program that scientists use to interactively share computing resources, data and expertise. People around the world use these resources and services — things like supercomputers, collections of data and new tools — to improve our planet.

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Source: XSEDE