News Announcement
Apply now for NSF-funded Research Experiences for Undergraduates summer positions at Cornell
Contact: Paul Redfern
Cell: (607) 227-1865
FOR RELEASE: April 20, 2018
ITHACA, NY – The Cornell University Center for Advanced Computing (CAC) announced today that three National Science Foundation-funded Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) positions are available for summer 2018, each with a $7,700 student stipend.
The 10-week Ithaca, NY positions are focused on developing cloud computing solutions for science use cases that are an integral part of the Cornell-led, NSF-funded Aristotle Cloud Federation project.
Undergraduate students are encouraged to apply for the opportunities listed below as soon as possible; employment will commence in May. Student applications are due Friday, May 4, 2018.
- Wind energy industry applications: Professor Sara C. Pryor and Postdoctoral Associate Tristan Shepherd, Cornell Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences – the REU student will analyze output from Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) simulations of near-surface wind regimes using MATLAB. Eligible students will have some experience in atmospheric science/fluid dynamics courses, MATLAB, and an interest in high-performance computing. See the science use case. To apply, email your resume and course transcript to Professor Pryor.
- Transient detection in radio astronomy search data: Professor James Cordes, Cornell Department of Astronomy – the REU student will help build a pipeline for processing data to detect transient signals such as Fast Radio Bursts (FRBs), in high time-resolution radio surveys such as the PALFA Pulsar search at Arecibo, for which CAC hosts 500TBs of data. Eligible students will have an interest in astronomy research and training in the underlying physical science but need not have extensive experience with computational research. See the science use case. To apply, email your resume and course transcript to Professor Cordes and CAC Computational Scientist Adam Brazier.
- Mapping transcriptome data to metabolic models of gut microbiota: Professor Angela Douglas, Cornell Department of Molecular Biology and Genetics – the REU student will be part of a project that is investigating multi-compartment metabolic models of the Drosophila-gut microbiome to determine the reciprocal effects of variation in the metabolic flux in each compartment on flux in other compartments.
The student will focus especially on the impact of two variables on the global flux distribution: (1) flux variability in individual compartments (i.e., the range of fluxes that each reaction can achieve while maintaining the optimized biomass production for each individual compartment), (2) the number of transport fluxes between compartments, and their degree of connections to network in the donor and recipient networks. These generic outputs will then be applied to host-microbe and among-microbe metabolic interactions in the Drosophila-gut microbiome. Eligible students will have domain-science expertise and some basic training in computational research, and will receive training in computational biology, with both genetic and metabolic components, in the cloud. See the science use case. To apply, email your resume and course transcript to Professor Douglas.
Successful REU applicants will be formally employed by the Center for Advanced Computing and will be compensated in 3 installments. The research activities will be undertaken within the respective departments in collaboration with Adam Brazier who is the Aristotle Science Use Case Lead. The exact period of employment may be negotiated to fit schedules, but will, in most cases, be May through late July.
Please note that REU students must comply with the following National Science Foundation requirement: "Undergraduate students supported with NSF funds must be citizens or permanent residents of the United States or its possessions."
The Aristotle Cloud Federation project is supported by NSF grant ACI-1541215 and the Cornell University Center for Advanced Computing (CAC) in partnership with the University at Buffalo Center for Computational Research (CCR) and the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB) Department of Computer Science. Current industry collaborators include Amazon Web Services, Dell, Globus, HPE, and Red Hat. The principal investigator is David Lifka, Cornell’s Vice President for Information Technologies and Chief Information Officer, and Director of CAC.
Five REU students will work on the Aristotle project in 2018; three at Cornell and two at UCSB. Students at UCSB will work under the guidance of Professor Rich Wolski on multi-source data analytics to improve food production and security.
