Forgive me for sending this a second time, but I've been informed that the web links I included are stripped away by older email readers.  Explicit URLs are thus included in this version for your convenience.

Best regards,

-Daniel

It is my pleasure to announce that the inaugural Software-Development Summer School for Computational Chemistry and Materials Modeling will be held at Virginia Tech July 15-25, 2013.   

One of the challenges faced by many Ph.D. programs in computational chemistry and materials science in the U.S. is the education of new graduate students in modern programming methods and software development techniques.  Since most undergraduate curricula in chemistry and materials science provide little training in such vital skills, many research groups spend considerable time and effort educating incoming graduate students on an ad hoc basis.  The purpose of this and future summer schools is to help our community overcome this obstacle and provide new students with the sophisticated programming expertise their research requires.

The software summer school is one component of a much larger effort to establish a "Sustainable Software Innovation Institute" (S2I2) as part of the NSF's SI2 program (http://www.nsf.gov/si2/).  The Institute will be designed to serve the entire computational chemistry and material modeling communities (both broadly defined) to develop new software and extend existing programs.  We will provide education, resources, and expertise in state-of-the-art high-performance computing hardware (including anticipated exascale systems), and we will help to develop standards that enable long-term sustainability of our community's codes.  We are currently in the "conceptualization phase" of the institute that will last until the end of 2014, following which we expect to submit a full proposal for five (or more) years of funding.  You can learn more about the Institute – including ways that you can get involved – at our S2I2 website (http://www.s2i2.org/).

The inaugural school will focus on junior-level graduate students in U.S. research groups with an application deadline of May 24, 2013.  We expect a large number of highly competitive applicants, and we plan to admit 15-20 students.  Based on current funding levels, we expect to provide substantial travel support, including accommodation and meals, for all participating students.  The confirmed instructors for the school include the Software Carpentry (http://software-carpentry.org/) team as well as Drs. Robert Harrison (Stony Brook U.), Ross Walker (UCSD), Jeff Hammond (Argonne National Lab), and David Sherrill (Georgia Tech).

More information and application details may be found at the summer school website (http://www.s2i2.org/school.php).  I hope you will encourage your students to apply and that you will share this announcement with any colleagues you think might be interested.

If you have questions about the summer school or the burgeoning S2I2 Institute, please do not hesitate to contact me.

Best regards,

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