CCT Education and Outreach.....to cultivate the next generation of leaders in Louisiana's knowledge-based economy, creating a highly skilled, diverse workforce!
CCT focuses on making the center a partner to the community of the state, the nation and the world. To fulfill this goal and foster greater understanding of technology and computational science, CCT hosts a variety of education and outreach activities to develop the knowledge, skill-sets and careers of a wide spectrum of individuals, including K-12 students and the public at large.
LECTURE SERIES:
CCT currently has 9 lecture series which bring world-class scholars, educators, executives and entrepreneurs to LSU and the Baton Rouge area to share their experience in and vision for the future in various disciplines. Faculty and staff regularly give lectures and are hosted as visitors at other universities and research institutions around the world to tell national and international audiences about activities at the center.
CONFERENCES & WORKSHOPS:
CCT prides itself by hosting and sponsoring numerous conferences on innovative research, advancing computational sciences, technologies, and the disciplines they touch.
• Red Stick International Animation Festival, firmly planted in the creative side of the animation business, acts to provide animators, directors, students, artists, designers, writers, and educators with a forum in which they can share their knowledge and skills and promote the art of animation.• Mardi Gras Conference (topics vary from year to year). Previous years have focused on: Computational Materials and Methods, Virtual Worlds, Distributed Applications, Tangibles, Grid Applications and Technologies, and Materials and Modeling for Information Technology.
• Scientific Computing Around Louisiana (SCALA) offers a forum for faculty, researchers and students to highlight cutting-edge topics in scientific computing, showcase their research, and promote collaborations across the state of Louisiana.
• Computational Biology Workshop forges a community of computational biologists across the State, bringing together researchers in computational approaches in the biological sciences, HPC providers and the cyber-infrastructure developers.
• The ACM Programming Contest. The 2010 Association for Computing Machinery South Central Regional Programming Contest .This annual activity is hosted by CCT and the LSU Computer Science department reaching out to undergraduate students interested in computer programming.
• CCT also hosts a booth at the Siggraph and SC (Supercomputing) Conferences every year.
UNDERGRADUATE & GRADUATE OPPORTUNITIES:
• Interdisciplinary Research Experience in Computational Sciences . This (REU) project is a nine week program where students work collaboratively on a wide variety of computational science projects. The students learn how to use the most current cyberinfrastructure tools with individually designed training sessions targeted to their specific degree of preparation. In addition, since most CCT research groups collaborate with international researchers, REU students are exposed to how international collaborations work.
• Distinguished Graduate Dissertation Fellowship program. CCT offers support to outstanding graduate students at LSU as they complete their final year towards a terminal degree in their field.
• iOS Application Boot Camp. CCT offers LSU undergraduates the opportunity to gain knowledge while enhancing their entrepreneurial spirit by creating iOS applications.
K-12 ACTIVITIES (including teachers):
• Beowulf Boot Camp for High School Students and Teachers. This week long camp is an annual event (currently in our 3rd year) where students work under the direction of Chief Scientist Thomas Sterling to build basic supercomputing clusters, then use them for applications. Students are instructed in hardware and software concepts.
• Stop Motion Summer Camp . A week long summer camp for high school students for hands-on instruction, teaching them basic techniques to create a stop motion animated film. By the end of the camp, students have produced an original, animated film they are welcome to submit to festivals or film competitions. • Alice in Computation Land Summer Camp. A week long summer camp for middle school age girls for hands-on instruction, teaching them basic techniques in computational science. • Computational Science Workshop for Louisiana Educators. In 2010, CCT and the LONI Institute invited high school teachers (instructing math, computer science, or the sciences), to participate in a week long workshop showing how to merge computational sciences into their already existing curriculum. A $500 stipend was awarded to teachers who complete this workshop. • NanoDays at Highland Road Park Observatory . An afternoon of free, family friendly activities as part of Nanodays, a national event of educational programs about nanoscience and engineering coordinated through the Nanoscale Informal Science Education Network. • The Red Stick International Animation Festival offers school groups field trip opportunities to come hear lectures presented by digital media professionals. Talks are geared toward younger minds, allowing students to put the pieces together among science, art, technology, business and more, seeing how all these areas come together. • Tours of CCT's high-performance computing resources can be arranged for student groups. Contact: ktraxler@cct.lsu.edu
TRAINING:
HPC @ LSU offers High Performance Computing hands-on training to LSU and LONI users. Topics include: introduction to MPI and advanced MPI; Molecular Dynamics; Open MP; data graphics with Gnuplot; Intro to CPMD; profiling with TAU; Intro to HPC at LONI and LSU. For a complete list, view: www.hpc.lsu.edu (Access Grid capabilities)
CCT partners with the Virtual School of Computational Science and Engineering (VSCSE) to bring summer courses to graduate students, post-docs and professionals from academia, government and industry. LSU on site courses include: 1) Petascale Programming Environments and Tools, and 2) Proven Algorithmic Techniques for Many-core Processors.
Click here for a list of our past events.
For more information on CCT's Outreach activities, contact:
Karen Jones at kjones@cct.lsu.edu
