This project is suppported by NSF's Integrated Graduate Education
and Research Training Program. Its goal is to recruit and train
future biologists in a seamless combination of computing expertise
and research using emerging tools that can attack even the most
challenging problems in biology, from sub-cellular to organismal
scales. Trainees conduct research in an environment of novel
data generation resources, state-of-the-art instrumentation, high
performance computing and worldwide distributed computing via the
tera-grid for work on molecular, genomic and system-level scales.
These scales are required to deal with increasingly complex
data sets that result from experimental resources, and associated
intensive calculations on molecular structure and mechanisms.
This program transforms our graduate education by developing
new curricula to provide the background needed to work across
computational and biological scales, by contributing to in-depth
problem-based learning with hands-on experiences, by building a
community through teamwork and mentoring, and by fostering broad
recruitment and retention through professional development in
workshops and off-site training opportunities. The program involves
scientists from several departments within four colleges at the
main and agricultural campuses at UT and two major directorates
at ORNL. As the need for computing in biology grows, program
trainees are positioned to enter the workforce in academia,
national laboratories, research institutes, or the industrial
sector. We partner with regional undergraduate programs
that train in quantitative aspects of biology and genomics to
recruit talented undergraduates to our program.
Participants:
The PI for this project is Cynthia B. Peterson.
Other Co-PIs are
Elissa J. Chesler,
Jack Dongarra and
Jeremy C. Smith.
International partners include the University of Queensland, Australia,
the Ruprecht-Karls University, Germany,
the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel,
and the University of Göteborg, Sweden.