Ian Foster The Computation Institute

2 Type Ia Supernova: SN 1994D

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4 A New Explosion Mechanism for Type 1a Supernova Type Ia Supernova Explosion: Gravitationally Confined Detonation (Calder, Plewa, Vladimirova, Lamb, and Truran, 2004)

5 What Made This (& Much Other) Science Possible? l ASC Center & U. Chicago l Sustained effort u ~60 people for 5+ years l World-class infrastructure u Computers, networks, storage, visualization l Interdisciplinary partnerships u Astrophysicists, software engineers, computer scientists, mathematicians, experimentalists, etc. l $30M+ from DOE for people

6 Many Big Questions May Soon Be Similarly Accessible l Life and nature u Evolution, genetic nature of disease, … u Global change, cosmology, … l Physical & social processes u Nanomaterials, alternative energy sources, … u Human cooperation, linguistic evolution, economics of alternative energy sources, … l National security u Detecting & responding to biological attack, … … if we can bring comparable resources to bear.

7 The Computation Institute: An Intellectual Resource Hub Discipline ScienceComputer Science Computationalists Applied CS New faculty concerned with computation A critical mass of technical experts with the skills required to create needed technologies An organization within which these staff can prosper Resources to support sustained efforts Physical infrastructure to support these efforts

8 Computation Institute Status l Since 2000, we have developed substantial expertise, pilots, ideas, & enthusiasm u 70 fellows, 80 staff/students, many projects u Leading national projects, infrastructure l We are now ready to scale up our efforts u New faculty, some joint with Argonne u Expand our world-class technology team u Tackle the most challenging problems u Define agendas for 21 st Century science u Find space to colocate the entire activity l This will be difficult & expensive, but is vital to Chicago’s long-term success

9 Image courtesy Art Toga, UCLA Evidence-Based Medicine (Planned at U.Chicago)

10 B. Bertenthal et al., U.Chicago & UIC Multimodal data for understanding cognitive processes

11 Understanding How Science Works J. Evans, U.Chicago

12 Revamping Medical Education (J. Silverstein et al., U.Chicago)

13 Building National Infrastructure (C. Catlett et al., U.Chicago

14 Computation & Computer Science “An important development … is occurring at the intersection of computer science and the sciences, that has the potential to have a profound impact on science. It is a leap from the application of computing to support scientists to ‘do’ science (i.e. ‘computational science’) to the integration of computer science concepts, tools and theorems into the very fabric of science.” (Report on “Science 2020”)

15 Questions for You l Are you familiar with big questions that could benefit from this focused approach? l With whom should we be partnering as we work to identify & tackle such questions? l How can we engage industry in the work of the Computation Institute? l How do we create a home for technologists within the University? l How do we obtain the resources needed for the Computation Institute to prosper?

16 Numerical Simulation Movie credit: ASC Center, U.Chicago