This award is funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Public Law 111-5).
The new Marist College technology research lab provides students and faculty access to cutting edge technologies for research and research training projects. It supports applied research projects with industry and academic partners and also provides a research training environment for over 600 members of the Enterprise Computing Community that was formed through a NSF CPATH award. Faculty members use the facilities to conduct research in a wide variety of STEM areas, including mathematical modeling of ocean currents and wave propagation, data mining for the detection and prevention of errors in the coding of medical diagnoses, application of computationally intensive routines to address problems in classical thermodynamics, and exploration of the use of cutting edge large system technologies such as virtualization and cloud computing to help small to medium-sized companies become more efficient and cost effective. Many of the research questions explored in the new lab are introduced by industry partners. These applied research collaborations are aimed at solving real-world business problems. Undergraduates and graduate students also benefit by learning the discipline of inquiry based research and experience the rigor of scientific methods and practices. Students learn firsthand how to apply new skills through their participation in research projects with faculty as well as academic and industry partners. Researchers will disseminate their findings through peer-reviewed journals and presentations at national conferences. Students will also present their work at both regional and national conferences. Applied research results will bring practical benefits to individual companies and by extension to the marketplace.
This grant enabled Marist to replace a dated technology research facility and create a world class technology laboratory comparable to a Research 1 university. The Enterprise Computing Research Laboratory (ECRL) is used for research, applied research, and research training by faculty, researchers, and students from Marist and from industry and universities across the country. NSF support is recognized on a plaque right outside the lab. Research projects that have used the ECRL lab include: Dr. Eitel Lauria and Mr. Josh Baron of Marist College received a $250,000 Next Generation Learning Challenges grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates and Hewlett Foundations to research the Open Academic Analytics Initiative (OAAI). They found that analysis of data from online courses can detect when a student was struggling in time to allow the instructor to intercede and help. Their research is being piloted by four other universities. It has the potential to benefit students in all disciplines. The OAAI was recognized in March 2013 by Computerworld as a 2013 Honors Laureate finalist in the emerging technology category. In June 2013, Campus Technology Magazine recognized the OAAI with their Campus Technology Innovator Award. A project in Software Defined Networking (SDN) was established with support from IBM to extend the capabilities and applications of networking technology. SDN provides an open interface to remotely control network switches, routers, and access points. Prof. Robert Cannistra led the research for Marist and several students have contributed software to the SDN open source community. Their work has been presented at IEEE and other industry conferences. Dr. Scott Frank of Marist College, working with two student researchers, developed a mathematical model and software program to study the interaction of underwater acoustic waves with the ocean floor. Dr. Frank’s research can be used for detection of unusual seismic activity and is now being applied to the study of marine mammals. His research has gained national attention and been recognized by grants from the Office of Naval Research and a Simons Foundation Collaboration Grant for Mathematicians. Enterprise computing research focused on virtualization, dynamic infrastructure, and green technologies. Individualized training and development opportunities are provided to students working with the industry and facultyresearchers in the new lab. Students administer the systems and set up the research environments. They receive training that is valuable in industry and graduate school. Individual students were hired as research assistants by the faculty using the lab. Marist has attracted additional grants and research opportunities: A new mainframe system was added to the lab with funding from a 2011 Major Research Instrumentation grant from the NSF. The system was installed February 2012 and is now running dozens of research projects. The ECRL facility was a strong consideration in Marist being awarded $3M grant from New York State (NYS) in December 2012. Marist was designated a NYS Center of Excellence in Cloud Computing and Analytics. Additional research equipment will be installed in the lab, expanding its performance and capabilities to address new areas of research, e.g. business analytics, 'big data' applications, in-memory computing, and high performance computing. The grant will enable Marist to be a full participant in the High Performance Computing Consortium, a research network between major research universities across New York State. IBM has given Marist faculty awards in research areas such as SDN, Analytics, Mobile applications, and Cloud Computing. Marist has established an SDN research facility for university and academic researchers and now offers a compliance testing facility for new equipment providers, one of the first in the country. Marist faculty and students collaborate with other university and technology providers on applied research projects that will result in new or improved products. Marist initiated a series of seminars focused on undergraduate research in the area of large systems and analytics. The first seminar in February 2013 was led by Dr.Tim Lance, President and Chairman of NYSERNet. In May 2013, Dr. Lauria presented his research in Analytics. Additional seminars will be held in fall 2014. The lab was a major focus of the 2012 and 2013 Enterprise Computing Community Conferences at Marist. Student research projects were presented at the conferences. Tours of the lab are led by student interns and offered to approximately 200 attendees. IT professionals may spend their entire careers without hands-on access to equipment of this scale and capability. In the ECRL researchers can dedicate the full capacity of the equipment solely to their projects (virtual servers, memory, CPU utilization, etc.) if needed. The ECRL lab is featured on the Marist Admissions tours for prospective students and their parents. Tours are offered every semester at the Open House for the School of Computer Science and Mathematics. Because of the quality of the technology provided by the ECRL lab, Goldman Sachs is now funding three full scholarships for financially-needy underrepresented students entering technology majors.
