The Extreme Science and Engineering Discovery Environment (XSEDE) Scholars Program is a program for U.S. students from underrepresented groups in the area of computational sciences. Students may apply for the 2016-2017 program until February 1, 2016 at 11:59 p.m. (CST). As Scholars, students will

• learn more about high performance computing and XSEDE resources
• network with cutting-edge researchers and professional leaders
• belong to a cohort of student peers to establish a community of academic leaders

The Extreme Science and Engineering Discovery Environment (XSEDE) is the most advanced, powerful, and robust collection of integrated digital resources and services in the world. It is a single virtual system that scientists can use to interactively share computing resources, data and expertise. XSEDE accelerates scientific discovery by enhancing the productivity of researchers, engineers and scholars by deepening and extending the use of XSEDE’s ecosystem of advanced digital services and by advancing and sustaining the XSEDE advanced digital infrastructure.

XSEDE is a five-year, $121-million project and is supported by the National Science Foundation. For more information, see www.xsede.org.

The XSEDE Scholars Program is directed by Professor Richard A. Tapia at Rice University and Program Manager, Juliet Stipeche.

In order to be considered, the project must include the use of high-performance computing for solving a problem in science and engineering. Some of the current projects being funded include

• Molecular Dynamics Simulations of Cosolvent Effects on Protein Stability, Jorge Alarcon Ochoa (Rensselaer Polytechnic University; physics)
• Forming direct collapse black holes with realistic Lyman-Werner radiation fields in cosmological hydrodynamic simulations, Glenna Dunn (Vanderbilt University; physics & astronomy)
• Computational study of adsorption of Cu and Ni Metallic clusters on Titania(TiO2) and Cerium Oxide(CeO2) Surface, Michael Taft (North Carolina A&T University; chemical engineering)
• Surface-deposited molecules and clusters: structure, surface-patterning, and bonding analysis, Olivia Irving (UCLA; physical chemistry)
• Petascale Curriculum Intern – GalaxSee, Wanda Moses (Clemson University; computer science)
• OnRamp to Parallel Computing Internship, Jason Regina (University of Wyoming; civil engineering)
• Parallelizing Suffix Array Construction, Efrain Vargas Ramos (University of Puerto Rico-Rio Piedras; applied mathematics)

As part of the Scholars Program, participants will:

• receive a stipend of $5,000
• receive 30,000 computing service hours to work on an HPC educational/research internship from May 31, 2016 to June 1, 2017
• receive a travel grant to attend the two-week Blue Waters Petascale Institute at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in late May 2016 (tentatively May 30 to June 10, 2016)
• receive a travel grant to attend the annual XSEDE Conference (XSEDE16) on July 17 to 21, 2016 in Miami, FL
• participate in at least six online technical training and mentoring webinars with other XSEDE Scholars
• network with leaders in the XSEDE community and learn about research, internships and career opportunities

You must be a U.S. citizen or permanent resident currently attending a U.S. institution to be eligible for the Scholars Program. In particular, the focus of the program is on the following underrepresented groups:

• African-Americans
• Hispanics
• Native Americans
• Women

Please note that the Scholars Program requires the scholar to conduct an internship at from May 31, 2016 to June 1, 2017. The scholar will work on an HPC educational/research project under the guidance of his/her current advisor or by selecting an advisor/project from the list of available internship projects at http://computationalscience.org/upep/positions/list (select Current Positions). The internship advisor can be a Blue Waters advisor who has submitted a project, or can be applicant’s current faculty advisor. 

• Apply by February 1, 2016: http://bit.ly/XSEDE2016Application
• Awardees will be notified on March 1, 2016 at 5:00 p.m. (CST).
• Questions may be addressed to Leticia Velazquez at [email protected]