MS I Overview of Fisk University N. Horace Mann III Professor Department of Mathematics and Computer Science Fisk University

MS I 2 Description and Demographics n Small, historically-black institution founded in 1866 n Academic emphasis in liberal arts and science n Approximately 850 students from more than 40 states (70% female) n Forty (40) percent are science majors

MS I 3 History of Achievements n First HBCU to be awarded university status n First HBCU to gain accreditation by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools (1930) n First HBCU to charter a chapter of Phi Beta Kappa (1952) n In proportion to enrollment, more Fisk graduates earn PhD’s than any other school n One-in-six of all African-American physicians is a Fisk graduate

MS I 4 Science Academic Programs (1) n Division of Natural Science and Mathematics n Biology, Chemistry, Physics, and Mathematics and Computer Science n Dual degree in engineering through Vanderbilt University and Howard University n Cross-enrollment with Vanderbilt in all areas including engineering n Internationally-renown NASA Center for Photonic Materials

MS I 5 Science Academic Programs (2) n Strong support for biology from the Howard Hughes Institute n Several funded research and education projects for Computer Science from NSF, NIGMS, and the DOE

MS I 6 Medical Informatics/Biocomputing SF-36 CoreSurvey End User Lumbar Spine Outcome Explorer (LSOE)

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MS I 13 Student Example #1 n Physics graduate student earning a second BS in Computer Science n Teamed with a Meharry microbiologist whose work is related to the Genome Project n Student uses the physical concept of entropy to quantify the information content of strands of DNA n Student is taking a sequential program that performs this calculation and is “parallelizing” it

MS I 14 Potential Benefits of MSI Availability n Graduate students at Fisk may receive distance learning courseware from the MSI project n Participate in the Summer Institute to be offered at Purdue n Resources of the MSI may be integrated into upper-level undergraduate courses to introduce students to state-of-the art concepts of computational science

MS I 15 Student Example #2 n Senior undergraduate student earning a BS degree in Computer Science n Teamed with a Meharry microbiologist whose work is related to the Genome Project n Student is configuring a data warehouse for mass storage of DNA sequences and developing a pattern recognition module that will identify sequences of interest n Must apply database technology, software engineering, along with implementing pattern recognition algorithms

MS I 16 Potential Benefits of MSI Availability n Resources from the MSI may be integrated into upper-level undergraduate courses to introduce students to advanced networking and data storage technology n Graduate students and faculty involved with the MSI may help in developing learning courseware for computer science courses and serve as TA’s n Increase Fisk computer science students likelihood of pursuing graduate degrees in computational science

MS I 17 Possible Long-term Benefits to Fisk Due to the MSI (1) n Increased access to resources of Carnegie Research I class institution(s) n Development of an MSI node at Fisk and attachment to regional grid n Better preparation and increased likelihood for success at major research institutions on the graduate level n More potential to develop funded research and education projects at a small, teaching- oriented university

MS I 18 Possible Long-term Benefits to Fisk Due to the MSI (2) n Supports solicitation of funding from the National Library of Medicine Office of High Performance Computing and Communications program in Biomedical Applications of the Next Generation Internet (RFP NLM /RMC) n Supports solicitation of funding from the National Science Foundation Minority Institution Infrastructure of the CISE directorate

MS I 19 Closing Remarks