This award is funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Public Law 111-5).
Visualization is increasingly essential for some forms of scientific and engineering research, particularly to explore change over time, or to examine complex interactions in models. While most scientific visualization occurs in two dimensions, selective use of three dimensional immersive technology for modeling and simulation projects is proposed by Drs. Joiner, Chang and Morreale at Kean University in collaboration with Dr. Manson of the Richard Stockton College of New Jersey. The specific research projects include topics in biochemistry, environmental studies, biology, meteorology, applied mathematics, psychology and computer science. There is a strong STEM education component to the proposed activities since Kean and Stockton are first and foremost, teaching universities. Nearly half of Kean's undergraduate population is minority and both schools have a significant percent of their student population who are first generation college students. The award from NSF's Office of Cyberinfrastructure supports acquisition of advanced scientific visualization tools, with Kean receiving the most significant grant.
Researchers will admit that it is a difficult task to mentally visualize the complex problems that they investigate each day. This visualization obstacle was tackled by Dr.RussellManson and his colleagues at The Richard Stockton College of New Jersey. Dr.Manson was awarded a National Science Foundation (NSF) major research instrumentation grant to bring a GeoDome to Stockton College. The GeoDome provides an environment to present simulations and visualizations for research . The GeoDome is an inflatable, portable,immersive visualization dome with the entire interior surface acting as a three-dimensional projection screen. The hemispherical dome is rapidly deployable and easily dismantled for quick storage. The dome comfortably fits 20 peopleor more and is wheelchair accessible. The GeoDome is a cost effective way to bring scientific data and stories to life in an interactive, three- dimensional environment. When inside the GeoDome, an audience is completely immersed in a virtual environment. Dr.Manson is an associate professor of computational science andprogram director for Stockton ’s Master of Science in Computational Science (MSCP) graduate degree program, which debuted in spring 2010. The award was used to purchase the equipment. The main outcomes of the project were setting up of visualizations forresearch and education in a range of astronomical, earth science and social science .
