Supercomputing in Pennsylvania
With Commonwealth of Pennsylvania support, PSC provides education, consulting, advanced network access and computational resources to scientists and engineers, teachers and students across the state
Discover 11: 25 Years of PSC Service
Over 100 students, representatives of government and industry participated in PSC's 25th anniversary observance and Discover 11 Open House on April 15. The event featured demonstrations of PSC research, including 3D stereo movies. PSC's biomedical group highlighted work published as a cover article in the March 10 issue of Nature, the prestigious international science journal (see pp. 24-27).
Economic Impact: Return on Investment
A report by the economic analysis firm Fourth Economy this year detailed
the economic impact that PSC has provided to Pennsylvania. Over the 25-year span since PSC's
founding in 1986, $13.20 in federal funds have come to Pennsylvania for every dollar of the
state's investment in PSC. In addition to attracting federal investment, PSC is a job
anchor, providing more than 1600 jobs (direct and indirect) annually. PSC has also trained
more than 300 employees now working at Pennsylvania companies.
Other benefits
of PSC's presence include its talent pool as a magnet for other technology investments. PSC
staff work was instrumental in the proposal that won $100 million in federal support for
PennREN, a statewide network that, along with providing broadband connectivity to rural
residents, businesses and agencies, will generate many jobs.
PSC provides to
Pennsylvania:
• economic impact of $219 million annually,
• 1,666 jobs, including PSC employees and research partners who contribute $2 million
annually in state payroll taxes,
• $450 million in federal investment, leveraged from $34 million in Pennsylvania investment,
a return of $13.20 per dollar, and
• a vital resource for companies seeking to innovate.
PSC Commonwealth Advisory Committee
A Commonwealth Advisory Committee helps PSC
maximize its benefits to Pennsylvania. These community leaders help to integrate PSC's work
with economic development, recommend new program areas, and promote PSC visibility:
- The Honorable Jay Costa, Senate of Pennsylvania
The Honorable Michael Folmer, Senate of Pennsylvania
The Honorable Joseph Markosek, Pennsylvania House of Representatives
Thomas D Moser, Manager, Infrastructure and Network, Westinghouse Information Technology
David Shapira, Chief Executive Officer, Giant Eagle
Colton Weber, Technology Development Consultant, Pennsylvania Department of Community and Economic Development
Robert Wonderling, President and CEO, Greater Philadelphia Chamber of Commerce
Dennis Yablonsky, Chief Executive Officer, Allegheny Conference on Community Development and Affiliates
3ROX:Network for Education
The Three Rivers Optical Exchange (3ROX) provides research and education network service to six Intermediate Units in western Pennsylvania that serve 128 school districts, more than 800 schools, 25,000 teachers and 300,000 students. 3ROX links these schools, teachers and students to a global community of people and ideas.
Pennsylvania Research Innovation
A number of projects in this booklet exemplify research by scientists in Pennsylvania:
- Nanomappers of the Mind: PSC scientists help to pioneer a research approach that maps a "wiring diagram" of the brain (p. 24).
- Putting Genes Together Really Fast: A University of Pittsburgh Medical School scientist leads a genomics study of congenital heart disease (p. 28).
- Mining the Word Hoard: PSC's newest system, Blacklight, enables new studies in natural language processing (p. 32).
- No Charge Double Helix: A team of scientists derive the first accurate structure of a fascinating molecule with applications in biomedicine and nanotechnology (p. 36).
- Supermassive Growth Spurt: Astrophysicists solve a puzzle about the origins of the first black holes in the universe (p. 40).
- Shutting the Door on HIV: A
scientist at Bryn Mawr College explores a promising avenue for drug therapy to defeat AIDS
(p. 45).
- Jukebox with a Brain: Carnegie Mellon's Department of Machine Learning, the first such department in the world, used PSC resources in a prestigious competition. (p. 46).
From July 2010 through June 2011, PSC workshops and presentations in high-performance computing reached 586 Pennsylvania grad and undergrad students, and PSC provided more than 2.3 million processor hours to 685 individual Pennsylvania researchers from 24 institutions. The following Pennsylvania corporations, universities and colleges used PSC resources during this period:
Download a pdf of this article as it appears in Projects in
Scientific Computing, 2011