Information Sciences and Technology

Penn State CI Day to showcase cyberinfrastructure, Jan. 31 to Feb. 1

On Jan. 31 and Feb. 1, Penn State will hold Cyberinfrastructure Day (CI Day), an event designed to foster nationwide conversation about the strategic role of cyberinfrastructure in academia, government and industry. CI Day is sponsored by a grant from the National Science Foundation and will enable participants to explore how interconnected systems of computational resources, repositories, communication networks, research instrumentation, environmental sensors and information displays are enhancing research and education endeavors around the world, in fields ranging from nanotechnology to study of global climate changes. To register, visit http://ciday.psu.edu/ online.

The event will begin with a poster reception from 5 to 7 p.m. on Monday, Jan. 31. Following this, a daylong program titled "Cyberinfrastructure in Research and Education: Building Partnerships for America's Future" and featuring practitioners from academia, government and industry will take place from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Tuesday, Feb. 1. Both events will be held in the Alumni Hall of the HUB-Robeson Center on Penn State's University Park campus.

The presenter schedule will feature a wide range of CI experts including Rupak Biswas, acting division chief of NASA's Advanced Supercomputing Division; Cray Henry, director of the Department of Defense's High Performance Computing Modernization Program; Jack Collins, director of advanced biomedical computing at the National Cancer Institute at Frederick, Md.; Tom Furlani, director of the University of Buffalo's Center for Computational Research (CCR); a multidisciplinary roster of Penn State faculty who are leaders in the use of CI methods and resources in their respective disciplines, as well as representatives from national and statewide high-capacity network providers NLR and PennREN.

"At Penn State, ITS Research Computing and Cyberinfrastructure group works with faculty members across the university in meeting their CI needs," said Vijay Agarwala, the unit's director. "Well-established application areas for computational science and engineering at Penn State include engineering, materials science, medicine, physical and life sciences, and earth science. Increasingly, however, we are serving several faculty members and students from disciplines in the social sciences, humanities or the arts, for example, who traditionally had not been major users of computational infrastructure.”

Agarwala said that, in addition to the day-long speaker program, CI Day will provide an opportunity for faculty, researchers, IT professionals, library experts, students and other like-minded individuals to come together to exchange ideas and examine the opportunities and challenges for interdisciplinary and inter-institutional adoption of best CI practices for research and instruction.

“With so many aspects of our lives going virtual, cyberinfrastructure is literally becoming the central nervous system for institutions like Penn State,” said Kevin Morooney, vice provost for information technology. “From instruction and research programs to artistic visualization and digital animation, cyberinfrastructure is fast becoming an integral technological solution to connecting data, computers, and people. We want this day to convey that concept to our community in a way that is tangible.”

Penn State researchers and/or students from all disciplines are invited to submit posters on their work for exhibition at the upcoming CI Day event. Please see http://ciday.psu.edu/posters.html for guidelines. The poster reception provides an opportunity for contributors to present their work in a social setting among a broad range of conference participants. Posters will remain on display throughout the following day-long conference, providing additional exposure for each participant's project.

Penn State's CI Day is co-organized by ITS Research Computing and Cyberinfrastructure and Penn State's Institute for CyberScience with funding from the National Science Foundation and the Cyberinfrastructure (CI) Days Consortium. For more information and program details please see the Penn State CI Day website at http://ciday.psu.edu/.

Last Updated April 21, 2017