News Archive

by Nicole Schiffer NCSA’s cybersecurity group is collaborating with Indiana University to form the Center for Trustworthy Scientific Cyberinfrastructure (CTSC) using a newly funded three-year, $4.297 million grant from the National Science Foundation. CTSC will help NSF cyberinfrastructure projects improve security by offering assistance in identifying problems and designing and implementing solutions. The center will … Continued

by Trish Barker The NCSA building is a hotbed for innovation in the application of advanced computing technologies. In addition to being the home of NCSA, it’s also the headquarters for the Institute for Advanced Computing Applications and Technologies (IACAT), the Illinois InformaticsInstitute (I3, or I Cubed), eDream (the Emerging Digital Research and Education in … Continued

by Nicole Schiffer NCSA’s Alan Craig describes how augmented reality brings a new dimension to information. Augmented reality, or AR, digitally superimposes sights and sounds on the images captured by the camera on your smartphone, iPad, or other electronic device, giving the sensation they are really there. Projectors can bring AR to a larger audience, … Continued

Illinois alumnus and technology entrepreneur Jerry Fiddler will give a talk as a part of NCSA’s SPIN (Students Pushing Innovation) open-house event at 4:30 p.m. Oct. 24 in the NCSA Auditorium. SPIN aims to identify Illinois undergraduate students to pursue innovative projects in collaboration with NCSA mentors through paid research fellowships. Fiddler will share his … Continued

After nearly eight years at the helm of the National Center for Supercomputing Applications at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Thom H. Dunning Jr. has announced that he will retire as the center’s director in 2013. He will remain as NCSA’s leader until the University of Illinois completes a national search for his successor … Continued

by Barbara Jewett Early results indicate Blue Waters will live up to expectations. A brief but tantalizing test run of the Blue Waters sustained petascale supercomputer earlier this year has left researchers eagerly awaiting full deployment. The Blue Waters Early Science System (BW-ESS) was only about 15 percent of the full machine as it consisted … Continued

Preparation for the Archon Genomics X PRIZE presented by Express Scripts® is going public with the global “Bioinformatics Challenge.” The Challenge solicits comments on the validation software that will be used to judge the $10 million competition next fall. Teams will compete to sequence 100 human genomes from 100 centenarians in 30 days. Along with … Continued

NCSA is looking for Illinois undergraduate students who have big ideas and the creativity, skill, and drive needed to bring them to life. We’re offering up to 15 paid innovation fellowships—selected students will work with NCSA mentors during the Spring 2013 semester. Join us from 4 to 6 pm Oct. 24 for NCSA SPIN (Students … Continued

The National Science Foundation has decided not to continue support for the operation of NCSA’s Mass Storage System archive beyond Sept. 30, 2012. In an effort to reduce the disruption this will cause to the researchers we serve, NCSA has made some commitments to allow for a smoother transition over a longer time period. For … Continued

by Nicole Schiffer Donna Cox, director of the Illinois Emerging Digital Research and Education in Arts Media Institute (eDream) and the Advanced Visualization Laboratory (AVL) at NCSA, stood center stage and thrust her right hand out from her shoulder a few times. “I’m still not getting the chi out of my hand,” says Cox. “Hey … Continued

by Nicole Schiffer NCSA’s Private Sector Program (PSP) hired two research programmers, Erman Guleryuz and Madhu Vallakal, to work on the National Digital Engineering and Manufacturing Consortium (NDEMC) project. NDEMC helps small- and medium-sized manufacturers use high-performance computing (HPC) to improve their engineering and manufacturing processes. Guleryuz and Vallakal both come from mechanical engineering backgrounds. … Continued

by Barbara Jewett An Illinois team uses NCSA resources to help humans understand their environment. “Everybody is talking about big data nowadays,” Shaowen Wang chuckles. “But we’ve been dealing with big data for years!” The “we” Wang is referring to is himself and his colleagues at the CyberInfrastructure and Geospatial Information (CIGI) Laboratory, especially research … Continued