Symposium First of Its Kind in Arkansas

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. – Scientists, students and information-technology workers across the state will benefit from attending Cyberinfrastructure Days, the first symposium of its kind in Arkansas. To be held May 16-17 on the University of Arkansas campus, the symposium will bring together cyberinfrastructure experts, stakeholders and users. Cyberinfrastructure is information technology that enables scholarly inquiry.

Attendees are encouraged to register online early at the Cyberinfrastructure Days Web site.

The symposium is the result of collaborative efforts between the university, the National Science Foundation and industry partners. The event is free and is open to all University of Arkansas faculty, staff and students and others who use cyberinfrastructure.

The goal of the symposium is to promote the awareness of cyberinfrastructure capabilities and to engage faculty and students in the use of resources available on campus. Attendees can enhance their understanding of these resources and apply this knowledge to their research and teaching efforts.

Currently, much research is data-driven. It relies on complex data sets or uses modeling and simulation to examine ideas and concepts that cannot be studied directly. This research often requires advanced data, data storage and access, high-end networking, computing resources and advanced training of support staff to use tools effectively. During the symposium, academic and industry researchers will address these aspects. They will also discuss availability, training and implementation that will enable the University of Arkansas and its partners to effectively build, support and use cyberinfrastructure resources.

Keynote speaker James Bottum, vice provost and chief information officer at Clemson University, will discuss the nation’s comprehensive effort to build advanced cyberinfrastructure to allow global competition. Bottum currently leads Clemson’s initiative to build state-of the-art cyberinfrastructure for education, research and service. His talk will include a description of the advanced cyberinfrastructure that Clemson is building to support its move into the top-20 ranking of the nation’s public universities.

“Arkansas is competing in a global economy,” said Amy Apon, director of the Arkansas High Performance Computing Center. “We need cyberinfrastructure to support innovation and the teaching of innovation that will build the economy of our state and make us competitive. Cyberinfrastructure Days is one step to getting there.”

The two-day symposium is an outreach component of Cyberinfrastructure for Transformational Scientific Discovery in Arkansas and West Virginia, or CI-TRAIN, a National Science Foundation grant awarded to the university in 2009. This $3.3 million grant is enhancing supercomputing at the Arkansas High Performance Computing Center, which supports research in computational science, nano- and ferroelectric materials, multiscale visualization and many other projects that require massive data storage.

More information and free online registration, see the Cyberinfrastructure Days Web site.