REU site: bio-grid initiatives for interdisciplinary research and education

ABSTRACT

The Bio-Grid REU (Research Experience for Undergraduates) Site offers undergraduate students to participate in the research activities associated with the Bio-Grid Initiatives conducted at UConn. The initiatives aim at advancing the application of modern computing infrastructures and information technology to research and practice in various life-science disciplines. Training seminars are designed to equip students with preliminary background knowledge such as basic parallel programming skills, large-scale data analytics, and middleware support, etc., as well as some ongoing life-science research projects using these computing methods. Students participate in research activities associated with several collaborative projects supported by a campus-wide computational and data grid. The Site was supported by the national Science Foundation from 08-10 and 12-14.

The REU project introduces such interdisciplinary research work to students in the early stage of their academic career to spark their interest. The project aims at preparing future software engineers to formalize and solve emerging life-science problems, as well as life-science researchers with a strong background in high-performance computing.

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Index Terms

• Applied computing

  • Enterprise computing

  • Life and medical sciences

    • Computational biology

    • Genetics

    • Systems biology

• Social and professional topics

  • Professional topics

    • Computing education

      • Computing education programs

        • Computer science education