New Federal Awards Reflect Technological Leadership at Maryland

COLLEGE PARK, Md. - The Department of Energy (DOE) has selected University of Maryland researchers to lead three research programs and to participate in three others, under the department's new Scientific Discovery through Advanced Computing (SciDAC) program. These new awards follow the Army Research Laboratory's selection of Maryland researchers to participate in all five of its (ARL) Collaborative Technology Alliances Programs.

"The DOD and ARL awards are a clear reflection of the world-class expertise our faculty have in a broad range of technologies, particularly information technologies" said Chuan Liu, Vice President of Research and Dean of the Graduate School. "No other university had researchers selected to participate in all five ARL programs, and Maryland is one of the few institutions selected to participate in five or more of DOE's new Advanced Computing Programs."

The DOE's the recently announced SciDAC program is designed to take advantage of the amazing computing capabilities of today's terascale computers that will help find new energy sources for the future, understand the effect of energy production on our environment and learn more about the fundamental nature of energy and matter. Thirteen DOE labs and more than 50 colleges, universities and companies will collaborate on research in areas such as climate modeling, fusion energy sciences, chemical sciences, nuclear astrophysics, high energy physics and high performance computing. Fifty-one projects will receive $57 million from DOE this fiscal year.

Maryland researchers Arnaud Trouve, Michael Fox-Rabinovitz and Ferdinand Baer, will lead SciDAC teams. Trouve, an associate professor in the Department of Fire Protection Engineering, will lead a team researching Terascale High-Fidelity Simulations of Turbulent Combustion with Detailed Chemistry Program. The project is aimed at unraveling the basic combustion physics needed to design cleaner and more efficient combustion systems including those found in cars and trucks.

"This project allows the University of Maryland to participate in a United States-wide effort to develop a cutting edge, high-performance computing infrastructure for scientific and basic engineering problems," explained Trouve. The DOE grant that Trouve and his team received gives them access to IBM's SP3 machine, the second fastest computer in the world.

Meteorology faculty Fox-Rabinovitz, a senior research scientist and Baer, a professor, will be the principal investigators for their projects. Fox-Rabinovitz will collaborate with University of Quebec researchers to develop and test new types of global atmospheric climate models for the study of climate variability and possible climate changes over small regions. The objective of Baer's project is to create a global climate model with features that will provide the best available climate predictions, predictions that can be used effectively to assist in making useful decisions on issues related to climate on regional as well as global scales.

Fourteen University of Maryland researchers are involved in the ARL's Collaborative Technology Alliances Programs, which are led by industries such as Honeywell International and General Dynamics Robotics Systems. The ARL program topics include Communications and Networks Alliance, Advance Decision Architectures Alliance and Robotics Alliance. The projects value from $49 million to $76 million.

01194