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Atkins to Speak at TeraGrid '07

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Speakers, Science Gateways and Tutorials -- Much in store for attendees at TeraGrid ’07!

CHICAGO — The second annual TeraGrid conference, being held June 4-8 in Madison, Wisconsin, will provide the scientific community with opportunities for knowledge sharing, collaboration and technologies to enable scientific discovery using the resources of the TeraGrid.

Daniel E. Atkins, director of the National Science Foundation Office of Cyberinfrastructure, will speak at TeraGrid ’07. His talk, on the morning of June 6, is titled “The Ubiquitous TeraGrid: Everywhere but Nowhere.” Atkins chaired the National Science Foundation (NSF) Advisory Panel on Cyberinfrastructure that in 2003 issued the landmark “Atkins Report” recommending an Advanced Cyberinfrastructure Program to revolutionize science and engineering research and education. The recent NSF Cyberinfrastructure Council’s “Cyberinfrastructure Vision for 21st Century Discovery” builds on this theme.

“Dan Atkins is a leader in the vision of ubiquitous cyberinfrastructure and I look forward to this opportunity for the TeraGrid community to talk about how it contributes to that vision,” said Dane Skow, principal investigator of the TeraGrid’s Grid Infrastructure Group.

Previously announced speakers include keynote Anita K. Jones, who directed research at the Department of Defense from 1993-97 and managed a budget of $11 billion; Philip Maechling, who leads earthquake modeling at the Southern California Earthquake Center; and Paul Strong of eBay Research Labs, who directs strategy for infrastructure and enterprise management.

New to the speaker line-up is Ray Rose, co-founder and president of Rose & Smith Associates, a consulting group dedicated to sharing the principles of successful online learning and the innovative use of technology in education settings. “We’re very pleased to have such a prestigious set of speakers to share their insight into the role of cyberinfrastructure in accelerating science and commerce,” Skow continued. “We’ve seen a marked increase in new modes and scale of use of the TeraGrid this past year, as have our colleagues in commercial and social networking. The nearly 600 published papers this past year in almost 200 scientific journals from work done on TeraGrid are the first fruits of this investment.”

Conference attendees will also learn how to become involved in TeraGrid Education, Outreach, and Training (EOT) programs and how to build a TeraGrid Science Gateway. “TeraGrid’s year-long EOT programs provide training, workshops, institutes, and self-paced tutorials designed to increase knowledge and skills in cyberinfrastructure on scientific computing resources across all disciplines, and across all stages of learning from K-12 education through professional practice,” said Scott Lathrop, TeraGrid area director for EOT and External Relations.

TeraGrid Science Gateways enable communities of users with a common scientific goal to use national resources through a common interface. Currently, more than 20 science gateways from a wide variety of disciplines are using TeraGrid resources through science portals, desktop applications, and grids.

TeraGrid Area Director Nancy Wilkins-Diehr says that she is particularly excited about the full day tutorial — Building Blocks for a Simple TeraGrid Science Gateway — that will allow attendees to build a science gateway that accesses TeraGrid resources. “We hope this simple building block approach will help attendees envision how a gateway might extend the capabilities of their communities. Expert gateway developers will be on hand to talk about their work and answer questions.”

TeraGrid ‘07 will highlight the results of science enabled by TeraGrid resources. In addition, on Monday, June 4, thirteen tutorials on TeraGrid resources, such as visualization tools, science gateways, and Globus middleware will be offered. Many of the tutorials are intended for new and intermediate TeraGrid users who would like to broaden or deepen their use of TeraGrid resources. Currently, TeraGrid resources include more than 250 teraflops of computing capability and more than two petabytes of online and archival data storage, with rapid access and retrieval over high-performance networks. Researchers can also access more than 100 discipline-specific databases.

About TeraGrid:

The TeraGrid, sponsored by the National Science Foundation Office of Cyberinfrastructure, is a partnership of people, resources, and services that enables discovery in U.S. science and engineering. Through coordinated policy, grid software, and high-performance network connections, the TeraGrid integrates a distributed set of high-capability computational, data-management and visualization resources to make research more productive. With Science Gateway collaborations and education programs, the TeraGrid also connects and broadens scientific communities.

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