Northeast and CAREERS Cyberteams: Supporting Research at Small and Mid-Sized Institutions with Student Research Computing Facilitators

Authors: Kaylea Nelson (Yale University, Center for Research Computing), Julie Ma (Massachusetts Green High Performance Computing Center (MGHPCC)), Andrew Sherman (Yale University), John Goodhue (Massachusetts Green High Performance Computing Center (MGHPCC))

Abstract: The Northeast and CAREERS Cyberteam programs are developing and implementing a sustainable approach to making advanced cyberinfrastructure more readily accessible to researchers at underserved institutions while simultaneously expanding the workforce of research computing facilitators (RCFs). The programs focus on the northeastern states, but the methodologies developed are intended to be broadly applicable. Our programs solicit computational or data intensive projects from underserved institutions and pair them with student-facilitators, guided by experienced RCF mentors, to move the research forward. During this BoF we will be presenting our programs and soliciting feedback and interest from the community.

Long Description: The Northeast and CAREERS Cyberteam programs are sister NSF-funded programs that have been operating to four years and one year, respectively, in two neighboring regions in the northeastern USA. They collectively aim to develop and demonstrate a sustainable approach to making advanced cyberinfrastructure (ACI) more readily accessible to researchers and educators at small and mid-sized institutions. It is widely recognized that Research Computing Facilitators (RCFs) are critical to successful utilization of cyberinfrastructure, but they are in very short supply. This scarcity of expertise is a significant barrier to productive deployment and utilization of cyberinfrastructure in a research capacity at these institutions, which may not have the volume of research to justify having RCFs on site. While our programs are focused on the northeastern region, the methodologies developed are intended to be broadly applicable. The Cyberteams provide the required human resources, RCFs, to researchers at small and mid-sized institutions to help them take advantage of available cyberinfrastructure and in doing so advance their scientific research and educational activities. Simultaneously, these projects expose undergraduate and graduate students, under the guidance of mentors who are typically professional RCFs, to the RCF profession and to unique work experience in ACI. The goal of this BoF is to present our programs for context and then host discussion on two primary topics. First, we are seeking feedback on how to maximize the impact of and engagement in the two programs. Secondly, the CAREERS program is already an successful extension of the Northeast program and, as such, we are hoping to interface with the community on similar workforce development efforts.

Our programs serve to demonstrate the value of RCFs and to introduce new entrants to the ACI workforce, while providing much needed computational assistance to researchers at ACI underserved institutions. Our BoF would be of interest to potential candidates for the three roles in our projects (researchers, students and CI professionals as mentors) as well as ACI professionals who are engaged in complementary workforce development activities. Our Cyberteam programs have not hosted an SC BoF in the past, but we expect the work of our Cyberteam participants will be of interest to both potential future participants and attendees engaged in other workforce development efforts. We are consistently impressed by the ability of student-facilitators to come up to speed and provide valuable assistance to their researchers and will ask a few participants from each Cyberteams to give a brief presentation on their work. We expect to come out of the BoF with feedback from the broader ACI community on our programs and methodology and form new relationships with other workforce development programs. We also hope to recruit SC attendees (students, researchers and ACI professionals) to participate in our Cyberteams.

URL: https://northeast.cyberinfrastructure.org/


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