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Broadening Participation Allocations for 2018


The Blue Waters project at NCSA has awarded over 3.7 million node-hours of computing resources to 21 research teams from across the country to broaden the diversity of the Blue Waters user community.

Included among the Principal Investigators (PIs) are ten females and two underrepresented minorities. In addition, there are four female and eight underrepresented minority colleagues listed as co-PIs. Among the lead institutions, five are Minority Serving Institutions and nine are within EPSCoR jurisdictions.

The projects will be invited to attend the annual Blue Waters Symposium in 2019 to provide presentations on their research findings.

Awarded projects

PI Name PI Institution Field of Research Project Summary
Yonghua Yan Jackson State University Fluid, Particulate, and Hydraulic Systems The objective of this research is to study the ramp-induced shock/boundary layer interaction controlled by MVG (Micro Vortex generator) arrays in supersonic flows.
SWBLI (Shock wave boundary layer interactions), which is a prominent problem faced in high-speed flow, will be studied numerically.
Jane Pratt Georgia State University Stellar Astronomy and Astrophysics In order to produce new and improved models for stellar evolution, we use the Multi-dimensional Stellar Implicit Code (MUSIC) to study realistic nonlinear fluid dynamics in the interior of a young solar-like star.
The models produced from this work will allow us to better interpret data from space missions and observatories, including data on topics like stellar winds and space weather, and the environmental conditions of extra-solar planets.
Renata Wentzcovitch Columbia University Thermodynamics Using atomistic quantum mechanical calculations, we compute materials properties needed to model the physical state and chemical processes taking place in the interiors of Earth and of other terrestrial planets.
Such studies are fundamental to establish the internal dynamical state, its surface tectonic expression (earthquakes and volcanism), and ultimately the potential habitability of a myriad of terrestrial exoplanets being discovered.
Zhi Jian Wang University of Kansas Fluid, Particulate, and Hydraulic Systems In this project, we plan to directly compute and mitigate jet noise produced by supersonic aircraft engines using a high-order large eddy simulation tool capable of handling complex geometries.
Reducing jet noise generated by supersonic aircraft can dramatically decrease the health risk and improve the quality of life for those in the vicinity of the aircraft.
Francina Dominguez University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Hydroclimatology The focus of this work is to understand how future projected deforestation of the Amazon forest will likely impact temperature, moisture transport and precipitation over South America.
Our work will help inform policy makers of possible continental-scale consequences of deforestation by advancing our understanding of the underlying physical mechanisms.
Bin Xu University of Arkansas Physics - magnetic cycloid We will use fully-ab-initio techniques to unravel the origin of the magnetic cycloid in the most well-known room-temperature multiferroic material bismuth ferrite.
Comprehension of the fundamental interactions in multiferroic BFO will be precursor for promising applications in memory technologies and quantum computing by manipulation of topologically stabilized states.
Greer A. Dolby Arizona State University Biological sciences, Earth sciences We are developing a computational method to test how different types genes among tortoises vary across the landscape in association with different environmental characteristics.
This approach works to harness very large spatial and genetic datasets, and is widely applicable to other studies, such as how tumors evolve differently in regions of the body, or how some species’ populations may be better adapted to future climate change conditions than others.
Jodi A. Hadden University of Delaware molecular biosciences The allocation will be used to study the effects of drugs on the hepatitis B virus capsid.
There is currently no cure for hepatitis B virus, but disruption of the its capsid, which drives delivery of the viral genome to the host cell nucleus, represents a promising approach for new antiviral treatments.
Molly S. Peeples Space Telescope Science Institute Galaxy evolution We are running a new simulation of the universe to study how the small-scale structure of the diffuse gas between galaxies affects how galaxies grow and evolve through cosmic time.
Nicole Riemer University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Atmospheric Sciences This project will quantify the errors in current estimates of the climate impacts of aerosol particles by using an ultra-high-detail aerosol modeling approach combined with machine learning techniques.
The improved understanding of aerosol and cloud modeling processes generated by the proposed work will be an important contribution to reducing the uncertainty in the predictions of future climate change.
Guillermo Araya University of Puerto Rico, Mayaguez Engineering, Fluid, Particulate, and Hydraulic Systems Perform high spatial/temporal resolution numerical experiments of turbulent flows with heat transfer subject to the effects of strong favorable/adverse pressure gradient.
Many flows of industrial and technological applications are subject to acceleration/deceleration such as convergent/divergent ducts, turbines blades and nozzles; therefore, the acquired knowledge will be used in the development of better turbulence models and flow control tools for drag reduction and heat transfer enhancement.
Chunyuan Diao University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Biological Sciences This project aims to develop a petascale parallel framework on Blue Waters for analyzing massive remote sensing imagery to advance the continental-scale monitoring of invasive species.
This framework will facilitate the development of comprehensively cost-effective management policies that can potentially save over $200 million annual economic loss from species invasion across the country.
Christoph Brehm University of Kentucky Fluid, Particulate, and Hydraulic Systems The underlying physics of rotating fluid flows will be examined with highly-resolved simulations, which will provide a better understanding of relaminarization and turbulence suppression commonly observed in these types of flows.
An improved understanding of these flows will allow for the design of novel flow control strategies as well as more accurate modeling fidelity of rotating flows, commonly observed on wing tip vortices, atmospheric flows, axial compressors, etc., which has broad implications across a wide range of industrial applications.
Farzad Mashayek University of Illinois at Chicago Computational fluid dynamics We will perform high-fidelity simulations of four supersonic shear layers in two geometries to capture and understand the underlying physics of their reattachments under the effect of compressibility by analyzing 61 variables resulting in 10TB of data.
This research will expand our understanding of compressibility effects in supersonic combustors, such as scramjet engines, which will allow engineers to propose improved designs of these supersonic flight vehicles of the future.
Oliver M. F. Browne University of Kentucky Fluid, Particulate, and Hydraulic Systems Predicting Boundary Layer Transition on Complex Hypersonic Vehicle Designs.
A better understanding of hypersonic boundary layer transition can lead to the improved design of vehicles for space travel.
Zhen Xu University of Michigan Fluid, Particulate, and Hydraulic Systems The research plan of this work is to investigate the non-spherical gas bubble collapse dynamics near soft materials using high-resolution simulations and develop a comprehensive model of the dynamics and corresponding damage mechanisms.
The broader impacts of this work will lead towards the development of strategies to better control cavitation-induced erosion for applications ranging from extending the lifetime of the naval structures and equipment to furthering the development of biomedical ultrasound techniques to treat malignant tissues.
Xiangdong Zhang University of Alaska Atmospheric Sciences/ Climate Dynamics In this project, we will conduct high resolution ocean-sea ice modeling experiments to investigate how storms change Arctic sea ice thickness and coverage, in particular considering the increased frequency of intense storm occurrence over the Arctic Ocean.
The research would have significant implications for improving assessment of rapid Arctic environmental changes, and enhancing prediction ability of sea ice conditions, which would benefit risk mitigation of storm-induced extreme sea ice, ocean, and environment events, and policy-decision for Arctic energy exploration and trans-Arctic navigation.
John Cavazos University of Delaware Computer and Information Science and Engineering Our research aims at using expressive graphical representations of malicious code to train Deep Neural Networks (DNNs) that accurately identify important capabilities and trends of malware.
Our research will use highly-accurate machine learning algorithms and expressive graphical representations of malicious binaries to help security analysts obtain better situational awareness and detect potential breaches before they happen.
Lela Vukovic University of Texas at El Paso Materials Research DNA-wrapped carbon nanotube conjugates will be modeled by enhanced sampling computational techniques.
These conjugates show promise as sensitive sensors of neurotransmitter molecules, and may eventually be capable to probe the emergence, diagnosis, and treatment of neurological diseases.
Colleen E. Clancy University of California, Davis Biophysics Cardiotoxicity in the form of deadly abnormal rhythms is one of the most common and dangerous risks for drugs in development.
There is an urgent need for new approaches to screen and predict the effects of drugs on cardiac rhythms. Our team proposes a new computer based model framework to predict drug effects from the level of the receptor interaction to the cardiac rhythm.
Julie Dickerson Iowa State University Computational systems biology We are building a recommender system to predict the functions of mRNA isoforms of a gene across different tissues, much like how Netflix suggests new shows to watch.
Learning the functions of different mRNA isoforms may lead to better understanding of how organisms respond to different conditions such as stress.