A-State receives National Science Foundation campus cyberinfrastructure grant
by March 25, 2025 4:26 pm 151 views
Arkansas State University has been awarded a $99,906 planning grant from the National Science Foundation’s (NSF) Campus Cyberinfrastructure program to assess the feasibility of upgrading high-end technology on campus.
While still in the early stages, the findings from the planning grant will impact A-State’s efforts to expand research opportunities, particularly in high-performance computing (HPC).
“This grant is the culmination of many discussions, dating back to 2019, about the growing need to enhance our research computing capabilities,” said Dr. Robert “Drew” Fleming, assistant professor of mechanical engineering and principal investigator (PI) for the grant.
Co-PIs on the grant are Dr. Jonathan Stubblefield, assistant director of the Center for No-Boundary Thinking; Dr. Alexandr Sokolov, assistant professor of engineering management and construction management; and Dr. Sudeepa Bhattacharyya, professor of biomedical and health informatics, University of Missouri System.
If A-State receives the hardware, it could open doors for researchers who rely on HPC. Currently, researchers must travel to institutions across the South, including Oklahoma State University and the University of Arkansas, to use external HPC resources.
Research in AI/machine learning, data analytics, bioinformatics/genomics, and material simulation at the atomic scale requires access to such facilities.
“HPC platforms are specialized facilities with clusters of computers, where complicated simulations, requiring billions of small calculations per second, can be distributed over a large number of computers to speed up results,” Fleming said.
There is still a long road ahead before creating an on-campus HPC facility or regional data storage system. However, work is underway to make it a reality.
“As A-State grows its research enterprise, local access to these resources is vital to support and retain high-quality faculty, train undergraduate and graduate student researchers, and improve student educational outcomes in courses that can benefit from these resources,” Fleming said.
The grant will help create a research cyberinfrastructure plan for the university, including focus groups to determine the institution’s needs.
Student participation will be part of focus groups and a cyberinfrastructure workshop this summer. Fleming also noted that the project could improve student access to campus software systems, benefiting A-State online students.
“The planning grant will, hopefully, position us to be competitive for a hardware acquisition proposal later this year or early next,” Fleming said.