Ian Foster

The Computation Institute

2Type Ia Supernova: SN 1994D

3

4

A New Explosion Mechanismfor 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?

ASC Center & U. Chicago Sustained effort

~60 people for 5+ years World-class infrastructure

Computers, networks, storage, visualization

Interdisciplinary partnerships Astrophysicists, software engineers,

computer scientists, mathematicians, experimentalists, etc.

$30M+ from DOE for people

6

Many Big Questions May Soon Be Similarly Accessible

Life and nature Evolution, genetic nature of disease, … Global change, cosmology, …

Physical & social processes Nanomaterials, alternative energy sources, … Human cooperation, linguistic evolution,

economics of alternative energy sources, … National security

Detecting & responding to biological attack, …

… if we can bring comparable resources to bear.

7

The Computation Institute:An Intellectual Resource Hub

Discipline Science Computer Science

ComputationalistsComputationalists Applied CSApplied 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 Since 2000, we have developed substantial expertise,

pilots, ideas, & enthusiasm 70 fellows, 80 staff/students, many projects Leading national projects, infrastructure

We are now ready to scale up our efforts New faculty, some joint with Argonne Expand our world-class technology team Tackle the most challenging problems Define agendas for 21st Century science Find space to colocate the entire activity

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

Are you familiar with big questions that could benefit from this focused approach?

With whom should we be partnering as we work to identify & tackle such questions?

How can we engage industry in the work of the Computation Institute?

How do we create a home for technologists within the University?

How do we obtain the resources needed for the Computation Institute to prosper?

16

Numerical Simulation

Movie credit: ASC Center, U.Chicago