A multidisciplinary graduate program of education, research and training in Multi-Scale Computations of Fluid Dynamics (CFD) at Louisiana State University (LSU) will be undertaken in interdisciplinary partnership between the various CFD groups and the Center for Computation and Technology at LSU, and outreach partners at Southern University, Louisiana Tech University, and LSU Eye Center. All schools are tightly connected by a 40 Gbit optical network and tied to the National LambdaRail. The intellectual merit and purpose of this program is to provide doctoral students with enhanced multidisciplinary education and training that will integrate all elements critical in solving critical CFD projects of the future: distributed collaborations connected by optical networks, high performance and grid computing techniques, CFD as a fundamental discipline, and numerous fluid dynamical application areas where Louisiana has unique research strengths. Braoder impacts of the project relate to application areas that span the spectrum of flow scales (from microns to kilometers) and include biological/biomedical flows, estuarine/oceanic flows, reservoir flows, and astrophysical flows. IGERT research and education will occur at the disciplinary interfaces, with faculty mentors from two or more disciplines, and a focus on enabling large-scale parallel computing of flow systems that resolve scales and their dynamics that were previously not possible. IGERT students will complete a program of study that includes an original interdisciplinary research problem for their dissertations, and a mix of interdisciplinary fluid dynamics, computational science and CFD courses that are team-taught and cross-listed across the various departments. IGERT is an NSF-wide program intended to meet the challenges of educating U.S. Ph.D. scientists and engineers with the interdisciplinary background, deep knowledge in a chosen discipline, and the technical, professional, and personal skills needed for the career demands of the future. The program is intended to catalyze a cultural change in graduate education by establishing innovative new models for graduate education and training in a fertile environment for collaborative research that transcends traditional disciplinary boundaries.
