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Wednesday, May 14, 2008 UNI computer science prof's project given Campus Technology Innovator award CEDAR FALLS, Iowa -- A University of Northern Iowa computer science professor was the lead on a project selected by Campus Technology magazine as a 2008 Campus Technology Innovator, one of 14 projects chosen from more than 300 submissions nationwide.
Paul Gray, UNI associate professor of computer science, and Charlie Peck of Earlham College in Richmond, Ind., collaborated on Edu-Grid, an educational high-performance computing (HPC) environment that supports HPC instruction and curriculum development.
Gray and Peck will be recognized at the 2008 Campus Technology conference in Boston in July, and Edu-Grid will be featured in the August issue of Campus Technology magazine, which focuses on the use of technology across all areas of higher education.
"Computational methods are now an indispensable tool in almost every discipline, and the aim of Edu-Grid is to support as wide a range of these disciplines as resources will permit," Gray said. He and Peck conduct week-long workshops for undergraduate faculty each summer that focus on curriculum development based on HPC resources, with topics such as "Computational Physics for Physics Educators." "In classrooms, simulations can bring science to life through virtual experiments that are not possible in the school laboratory," he said.
Edu-Grid consists of computational resources, scientific software, documentation and workshop instruction devoted to using HPC to transform undergraduate curriculum, according to Gray. "The need for an educational HPC environment was the reason for Edu-Grid," Gray added.
This past year, the focus of Edu-Grid was extended from the sciences, technology, engineering and mathematics to include the humanities, arts and social sciences. "HPC affects not just science but all aspects of our lives--from the way we view the universe to the way potato chips are shaped," said Gray.
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