Frequently Asked Questions

Our mission is to enhance the role of computing and cyberinstructure in research and industry across all areas.

We run a summer school that is mainly aimed at graduate students and advanced undergraduate where we have three weeks for formal instruction, followed by four weeks of project based research in some area of cyberinfrastructure or computing.

This would vary year by year, but you will learn a core of data, interacting with high performance computing, python programming, numerical and statistical algorithms.  Electives would include machine learning.

Most students will come with a project and a project mentor in mind.  The elements of a good project is that it involves computation in some way, it is essential or useful in some area of research, and it is doable on a weeks to one month timescale.

Sure, get in contact with us and we can get you started talking to potential project mentors.

If you get stuck, a combination of the project mentor and cyberinstructure advisors (CIAs) will work with you closely to get you unstuck.  The idea of the school is for you to produce something in a short period of time, so we don’t have time for you to be stuck.

Applications are due for students and participants by Feb 15.  We will notify you by the middle of March of your application status.  The school is expected to begin around the first week of June and run for seven weeks.

The school will start after Memorial Day.  In 2024, this means the school starts on May 28, 2024.  The teaching phase will continue for about 3 weeks.  We will then start the project phase for 4 weeks.  The school ends with final presentations on July 19, 2024.

The school is divide into two phase.  The first 3 weeks is an instructional phase when we will have in-person classroom instruction with lab exercises.  The second 4 week phase is a project phase where you will work on your project with help of your mentor and school staff.  This second phase can be done remotely/virtually.

School does not cost a dime,  In fact, you will earn a stipend of $3,500 for seven weeks of in-class learning and project work. TAs will get $3,000.

A good application involves a well-written CV or resume (1-2 pages) and a well-written project proposal of 1-2 pages.  The project proposal should (briefly) outline the research problem that you want to tackle, how computing or cyberinfrastructure will make a difference, how you intend to tackle this problem, the knowledge and skills required to tackle this problem, and a description of the end result for the summer of work. It should be written at the level for a person with a good technical background, but not well-versed in your proposed research area. 

There is no hard or fast rule on a good project proposal, but generally there are a few elements:

1. Introduce the topic generally.
2. Present the problem/project to be done
3. Outline the link to computing or cyberinfrastructure
4. Define the needed skills
5. Define the deliverable.

Here is a few samples:

• New initial conditions generator for MANGA

Great! Email us here.

Sign up on the Apply page.

Sign up as a teaching assistant/cyberinfrastructure advisor.  You can help guide projects along.

You can apply here. But briefly, you will need a CV, a statement of your computing/cyberinfrastructure experience, and a person that we can contact who can recommend you.  Our team will ping your recommender to get their feedback.

We do require some previous experience with programming and some degree of mathematical sophistication.  But we will teach you everything you need to know to some degree.  Also our TAs and CIAs will help you along if you get stuck.