A Tale of Two Centers
Robert Moorhead
Director, Visualization, Analysis, and Imaging Lab
GeoResource Institute
Mississippi State University
Thursday, December 9, 2004 at noon
Lubrano Conference Room (CIT 4th floor)
Refreshments served at 11:45 AM
The ERC at Mississippi State University originated in 1990 as the NSF Engineering Research Center (ERC) for Computational Field Simulation at MSU, which focused directly on the application of high performance computing (HPC) for computational field simulation of fluid flow, heat and mass transfer, and structural mechanics for applications to aircraft, spacecraft, ships, automobilies, environmental, ocean, and biological flow problems. Initially funded by the NSF Engineering Research Center (ERC) Program in 1990 - one of three NSF ERCs funded that year out of 48 proposals - this ERC was the only one of the NSF ERCs with its focus directly on high performance computing (HPC). Over the 11-year life cycle that NSF ERCs have, the Center increased its annual funding by an order of magnitude, graduating from the NSF ERC program in 2001 and now continuing as a self-sufficient research center with funding from a range od federal agencies and industry.
The ERC now consists of five loosely federated centers focused on high performance computing that have a cumulative annual extramural funding of over $30M. These five centers are:
Center for Advanced Vehicular Systems
Center for Computational Sciences
Center for DoD Programming Environment and Training
Computational Simulation and Design Center
GeoResources Institute
This talk will discuss how the original ERC came into being and how it evolved into the five centers that now exist.