A jumpstart on computing, super style
High-school students interact with world-class scientists in summer program

By ELLEN GOLDBAUM
News Services Editor

Although they weren't making movies, a select group of local high-school students who attended a summer program at the UB Center for Computational Research (CCR) did their homework on an SGI, Inc. Origin2000 Server, similar to the one used in the creation of "Toy Story" and "Antz."

Such supercomputers are featured at national supercomputing centers, like CCR, where they are used to solve a myriad of problems in the hard sciences.

"The purpose of the program is to provide local students with an opportunity to significantly enhance their education by interacting with some of UB's world-class scientists and by utilizing the extraordinary resources that our center provides," said Russ Miller, CCR director and professor of computer science.

Established in January, CCR is one of the nation's top-10 academic supercomputing centers.

The two-week program, which ran from June 28 through July 9, taught students about computational science, an emerging discipline that unites mathematics and computer science with disciplinary research in such fields as chemistry, physics and biology. In particular, the students focused on using high-end computers, coupled to visualization systems, to solve problems in chemistry.

"The students develop an understanding of what's behind the big computers and why you need them," said Bruce Pitman, professor of mathematics and director of the summer program. "They find out that, all of a sudden, the big questions in science don't work on a little PC."

The students learned to work with a molecular-simulation program developed for chemical-engineering students by David Kofke, professor of chemical engineering, and his colleagues at other institutions.

By the end of the session, the students, who gave presentations on what they had learned, knew how to run molecular simulations on supercomputers, how to implement sorting algorithms in the scientific computing language, FORTRAN, and how to prepare computer programs to run on supercomputers. Such skills are known by a relatively small number of professionals who deal with sophisticated scientific applications.

"This program gives some of these bright students a jumpstart on what real-life computing is about," said Greg Hylkema, physics teacher at Orchard Park High School, who had two of his students in the UB program. "They get experience solving problems that they some day will be working on in the field. And I think the chance to work on some of the top supercomputers in the country is exciting."

"These are exceptional students," said Pitman, who jokingly added, "I'm glad I'm not competing against them."

In addition to Pitman and Kofke, the program's instructors were Tom Furlani, associate director of CCR; Harry King, professor of chemistry; Jiali Gao, professor of chemistry, and Matt Jones, CCR staff scientist.

Since there currently is no dedicated funding source for the summer program, Miller explained that the center is pursuing funding opportunities so that it can continue to offer courses and workshops to middle- and high-school students, as well as programs for high-school, middle-school and elementary-school teachers.

The CCR Web site is located at http://www.ccr.buffalo.edu.