Alán Aspuru-Guzik | Professor of Chemistry and Chemical Biology | Harvard
University
12 Oxford Street, Room M113 | Cambridge, MA 02138
(617)-384-8188 |
http://aspuru.chem.harvard.edu
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: T. Daniel Crawford <crawdad(a)vt.edu>
Date: Sun, Apr 28, 2013 at 9:27 PM
Subject: Software Summer School: Application Deadline May 24th
To: "T. Daniel Crawford" <crawdad(a)vt.edu>
Dear Colleague:
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://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,
--
Prof. T. Daniel Crawford
crawdad(a)vt.edu
540-231-7760