This project is carried out by a team of scientific computing researchers, computer systems researchers, and computer science educators. A cutting-edge compute and storage cluster is built to enable multidisciplinary research on computer systems and scientific simulations. This cluster consists of a stable compute partition with GPGPU processors for scientific computing and an experimental storage partition for computer systems research. Leading groups at Auburn University in the areas of computational atomic physics, climate and ecosystem modeling, and computer science plan to use this computing infrastructure in their research. This research infrastructure strengthens computer science research on parallel programming models, parallel I/O, file systems, storage, and data-intensive analytics. In addition, it cultivates new multidisciplinary research projects on computational climate modeling, computational atomic physics, and applied computer science. Furthermore, it allows better pedagogical methods and education activities to attract more students, particularly from underrepresented groups, for computing careers. The project's research is expected to result in optimized scientific codes, fine-grained ecosystem simulations, and accurate environmental change predictions. Research results will be published in computational and computer science journals and international conferences. Open source software packages from this project will be released for community services.
