Proposal Number: EPS-1006891 Institution: Louisiana Board of Regents Project Director: Michael M. Khonsari
This award is funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Public Law 111-5).
The Louisiana Optical Network Initiative (LONI) provides a modern, robust cyberinfrastructure environment that enhances research, fosters and facilitates cross-disciplinary collaborations, and integrates research and education across Louisiana. Currently, LONI provides network connectivity to virtually every public institution of higher education in Louisiana, as well as four research universities in the state of Mississippi. This proposal requests funding to extend LONI's high-bandwidth optical network into Xavier University of Louisiana located in New Orleans. Xavier is a private, historically-black university, which is nationally recognized for its science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) curriculum. This major initiative is expected to close the cyberinfrastructure gap at Xavier and facilitate active research relationships between Xavier faculty and students and the State's leading computational and experimental scientists as well as partnerships with major institutions nationally. Through this program, Xavier would become the first Louisiana institution whose research activities are anchored in a primarily undergraduate curriculum that is linked into LONI at a bandwidth that takes full advantages of the optical network's capabilities.
Intellectual Merit By providing a high-bandwidth network gateway to collaborators and mentors across the State and the nation, this proposal to extend and link LONI into the Xavier University campus promises to enhance fundamental research and education in many different ways. Focusing on collaborative research projects that are already underway at Xavier in the broad arena of materials science, the enhanced cyber-infrastructure environment plans to support: (1) studies of molecular magnetism to aid in the design of higher-performance magnets to enhance the capabilities of, for example, high-density information recording media; (2) research on novel materials for energy conversion and spintronics applications; (3) molecular dynamics simulations of the interaction energies between surfactant molecules and the crystal planes of nanoparticles; (4) numerical modeling efforts aimed at reducing the time required to engineer nanofluidic devices used to identify molecular signatures and thereby aid a variety of applications in biological discovery; (5) research aimed at eliminating pinholes during the fabrication of thin-film batteries; and (6) the investigation of polymorphism in pharmaceutically active organic crystals. This Research Infrastructure Improvement (RII) Cyber-Connectivity (C2) project proposes to build on the State's investments in cutting-edge cyberinfrastructure by closing the cyberinfrastructure gap at Xavier University of Louisiana, providing broadband connectivity equivalent to that of major research institutions in the State. These investments would accelerate learning and discovery at a nationally recognized HBCU, allowing Xavier's faculty and staff to be fully integrated into statewide interdisciplinary research collaborations. Through curricular enhancements, undergraduate research, and high performance computing training, Xavier's students will be better prepared for graduate school and life-long careers in computational and materials science fields.
Broader Impacts This project would impact research and education, diversity, and workforce development in the State in the following ways: RII C2-enabled Research and Education: Through Xavier's connection to LONI, underrepresented undergraduate students would receive enhanced research and educational opportunities, which will better prepare them for success in graduate school. LA RII C2 leverages Xavier's 3+2 engineering program as well as its new materials science research and education program by adding computational content to courses currently under development. The Computer Science department would develop new courses in data mining, robotics, and an interdisciplinary course in bioinformatics. Ten undergraduate students would participate in academic year and summer research projects in computer sciences and computational materials fields, with the opportunity to be mentored by faculty members at Xavier and other institutions participating in the EPSCoR RII Track 1 program. In addition, faculty and students would receive training in high performance computing from both LONI staff members and through attending workshops at national supercomputing centers.
Diversity: During the past decade, Xavier has ranked first nationally in the number of African American students earning undergraduate degrees in biology, chemistry, and physics, and in the physical sciences overall. Xavier currently ranks eighth in the nation in the number of its STEM majors who go on to earn their doctorates in science and engineering fields. Access to LONI would increase the research capacity at Xavier and would increase the number of underrepresented minority students engaged in high performance computing in the State. It would integrate Xavier's faculty and students more fully into the collaborative research and educational projects currently offered by the Louisiana EPSCoR program.
Workforce Development: Louisiana needs to more fully utilize its African American population (32% of its inhabitants) in its advanced technology workforce. Xavier is uniquely positioned to aid in this effort to produce leaders to meet the current and future demands for science and engineering professionals. Through the research opportunities, curriculum enhancements, and high performance computing training Xavier's undergraduate students would be better trained for graduate school and lifelong careers in STEM fields.
Overview Funding from the NSF Research Infrastructure Improvement Intra-campus and Inter-campus Cyber Connectivity (RII C2) program has allowed Xavier University of Louisiana, a private historically-black university nationally recognized for its STEM curriculum, to connect to LONI, a modern, robust cyberinfrastructure environment that enhances research, fosters and facilitates cross-disciplinary collaborations, and integrates research and education across Louisiana. Through this funding, Xavier has developed HPC expertise for both faculty and students through a cadre of research and educational programs. Cyberinfrastructure Improvements The LONI connection doubled bandwidth at the University from 250 mbps to 500 mbps. Internet access is currently divided into two circuits, one faculty and staff and one for the residence halls. The faculty and staff network was increased from 150 mpbs to 200 mbps and the student network was increased from 100 mbps to 300 mbps. Additionally, faculty are able to conduct research via LONI at a speed of 10 gbps, providing them with grid computing capabilities, increased data storage and transfer, and modeling/simulation and visualization capabilities. Intellectual Merit Xavier’s faculty and students have forged active research relationships with computational researchers throughout the State in bioinformatics, physics, mathematics, and materials science research. This has been accomplished through externally funded collaborative research projects, workshops featuring regional computational experts, and pilot research projects. The Pilot Funding for Collaborative Computational Research program funded three faculty members, including Dr. Jessica Graber (Physics), Dr. Lamar Meda (Chemistry), and Dr. Jian Zhang (Chemistry), who each received $34,000 to utilize LONI’s high performance computing resources and collaborate with another Louisiana institution. Lamar Meda collaborated with researchers from Louisiana Tech University to study the results of designed materials with improved properties and the structure of materials using computational/experimental outputs. Jian Zhang collaborated with researchers from Southern University to study gas sensing properties of tin oxide nanoparticles using methanol and ethanol. Jessica Graber collaborated with researchers from Tulane University to study the nature of rogue waves. Now that Xavier is fully connected to LONI, the new cyberinfrastructure environment will allow Xavier’s researchers to continue building active research relationships with the State’s leading computational and experimental scientists as well as partnerships with major institutions nationally. Broader Impacts Through RII C2 funding, Xavier’s underrepresented undergraduate students are receiving enhanced research and educational opportunities that will better prepare them for success in graduate school. Three new Computer Science courses have been developed and existing courses are being modified and enhanced by computational content. Over the lifetime of the grant, this project has supported 42 undergraduate student research projects in the fields of Computer Science, Chemistry, and Physics. In addition, over 50 of Xavier’s faculty and students have attended on-campus seminars on computational topics and multiple faculty and students have attended national and regional HPC computing training sessions. A total of 8 of these students have graduated to date. Four of these students have matriculated into graduate school and four have joined the STEM workforce. NSF studies have shown that involving freshman and sophomore students in research increases the likelihood of them becoming STEM majors, while involving students in research at the junior/senior levels increases the likelihood of their continuing their education at the graduate level. We expect that the remaining students engaged in this project will choose to go on to graduate school, thereby creating a pipeline of well-qualified underrepresented minority students interested in computational science within Louisiana. This grant has also lead to a broader engagement of Xavier’s faculty in statewide research programs like the NSF EPSCoR program. By increasing the capacity of faculty members to conduct HPC research, more will have the skills necessary to fully participate in the cadre of HPC projects that are active throughout the State. Workforce Development This project has led to the creation of one full time position at Xavier and has supported 42 undergraduate research students and one postdoctoral associate. Jobs created through the fiber construction were equivalent to 2.5 full-time employees. In addition, the training and research experiences offered to Xavier’s undergraduates will help them to become highly skilled and qualified for lifelong careers in STEM fields, addressing the national shortage of African Americans in STEM fields both within Louisiana and nationally.
