The project integrates graduate research activities in hybrid, accelerated computing applications with undergraduate computer and computational science curricula, preparing undergraduates for graduate school and industry professions with application development experience in technologies essential to emerging high-performance computing and peta-scale systems. Curriculum enhancements across multiple computer science and engineering courses are investigated using real research activities to identify specific improvements needed at the undergraduate level. The research focuses on the use of leading accelerator technologies (multi-core CPUs, GPUs, and FPGAs) in real scientific computing challenges and translating the insights, concepts, and examples for use in undergraduate computer science and engineering instruction. The significance of pairing research investigations with curricular development affords the opportunity to bring real experiences into the undergraduate classroom. Research level investigations will help to characterize the unique inter-dependency of computer architectures and high-performance applications. The resources, strategies and examples created in this project are available to undergraduate programs across the country that wish to provide instruction on the next generation hardware and software environments. The project also reaches several underrepresented populations through outreach efforts at local high schools, regional HBCUs, and leverages existing REU programs.
