Story by Jenn Wagaman
With the world backing them, the 2003 ARSC summer intern
team surrounds Betty Studebaker, seated in the middle.
From left to right are Daniel Lyons, Nikki Jackson, Naeemah
Lane, Gilbert Ornelas and Ameerah Muhammad.
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Imagine arriving in one of the most remote cities in the United
States, gazing at a moose munching vegetation by the side of the
road on your way to your dorm room (which overlooks America’s
tallest peak—Mt. McKinley) and starting your first day of
work at a world-class supercomputing facility. At the Arctic Region
Supercomputing Center (ARSC), students from across the U.S. travel
thousands of miles to spend a summer in the arctic learning about
high performance computing, visualization and networking.
In 1998, ARSC began a joint effort with the Pan American Center
for Earth and Environmental Studies at the University of Texas
at El Paso (UTEP) to encourage minority student involvement in
computer science programs. Under the direction of program manager
Betty Studebaker, the Alaska Research Summer Challenge has grown
to accommodate students from institutions around the country. In
addition, the program was recently awarded a National Science Foundation
(NSF) Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) grant, which
will ensure its continuation for at least the next three years.
Goals of the ten-week ARSC intern program are to involve the students
in hands-on projects with computer science, supercomputing and
visualization research professionals, provide them with life skills
experience and encourage them to develop graduate-level research
skills. The students live together in the University of Alaska
Fairbanks (UAF) campus dorms along with interns from other NSF
programs, and attend a weekly lecture series to learn about various
research fields on campus. Students also tour the local Fort Knox
gold mine, Poker Flat Research Range and other local sites of interest,
like the Alaska Brooks Range.
The 2003 program applicants were recruited from Bowie State University,
Norfolk State University, Morgan State University, University of
Texas at El Paso and New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology.
Each applicant is screened for computing background and dedication
and interest in the field of high performance computing. After
acceptance, they are matched with a UAF faculty member or researcher
who has a specific academic project in which the student can play
an active role.
Over the five years of the program, interns have completed a range
of inspiring projects.
Expanding the Body Language User Interface
Ameerah Muhammad demonstrates
the snowflake program she created in BLUI™ for
use in the Discovery Lab to Harriet Taylor of the National
Science Foundation
and her summer mentor, Glenn Chappell of UAF.
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With the recent installation of the center’s virtual reality
Discovery Lab, ARSC visualization specialist Bill Brody and ARSC/UAF
computer science joint appointee Glenn Chappell were eager to add
new features to the already existing Body Language User Interface
(BLUI™). At the same time, Ameerah Muhammad, a junior in
computer science at Bowie State University, wanted to gain experience
in virtual reality programming. Although she is considering entering
this field after graduation, her current school does not offer
courses in virtual reality. With the help of the summer intern
program at ARSC, Muhammad was able to spend the summer learning
virtual reality programming methods and working with state-of-the-art
visualization equipment. Muhammad wrote an application that creates snowflakes in a virtual
environment and allows the user to blow them around. Once she established
the UNIX skills she needed to accomplish this, she moved forward
into learning how to allow the snowflakes to accumulate in the
environment created by the program. These tools will be incorporated
into the existing BLUISculpt™ program, which allows users
to draw and sculpt in 3D.
Enhancing Tsunami Code
Doug Vicere, an undergraduate computer science student at UAA,
spent the summer of 2001 using his computer skills to help generalize
researcher Elena Suleimani’s tsunami code.
Suleimani’s code maps possible paths of a tsunami near Kodiak,
Alaska. The code was originally written to look specifically at
the Kodiak Island region. Study of any other region would require
re-writing significant portions of the code. Vicere changed the
underlying structure so that it would accept the description of
any geographic region as input.
In addition to modifying the tsunami code, Vicere also introduced
AVS software into the visualization portion of this project. He
was able to simplify the visualizations and make them easier to
use as a tool that could check for errors in the software and compare
results occurring from small changes to the input variables.
The long-term goal of the tsunami project is to develop a model
that can be used as an early warning system for communities that
may be in danger from a tsunami. When given the epicenter and magnitude
of an earthquake, the model will be capable of predicting the dangers
of a particular tsunami threat before it strikes land.
Automating Cross-Platform Testing
While an undergraduate computer science student at UTEP, Orlando
Solis spent the summer of 2001 working with ARSC user consultants
Tom Baring and Jeff McAllister. Solis used his knowledge of computer
programming to write scripts that helped automate cross-platform
testing of computer systems at ARSC.
Whenever any part of an ARSC computer system is upgraded or new
software is added, the system is tested to ensure that codes will
produce consistent results. Solis created three modules for the
tests: an initializer module, a control module, and a test module.
The tests run a sequence of functions with a user’s code
and compare the results to those obtained prior to the upgrade.
Test results differing from known results are taken as an indication
that the upgrades have changed the computing environment in a way
that may affect researchers’ results. Testing of this kind
helps the center maintain consistency within the systems regardless
of hardware or software upgrades.
Digitizing Artifacts
Neemah Lane, with one of her mentors, Shawn Houston,
ARSC User Consultant, shows off creations she made this
summer with the 3D printer.
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During the summer of 2000, Rosario Chavez, then
senior at the University of Texas at El Paso, spent her summer
digitizing artifacts loaned
to the intern program by the University of Alaska Museum. Chavez
used a Microscribe™ 3D scanner to develop high-quality three-dimensional
representations of a whaling harpoon and dancing sticks. The Microscribe™ is
a tool that uses optical sensors placed on the angles of an articulated
mechanical arm to map three-dimensional points in space. The tool,
which has since been largely replaced by laser scanners, was often
used by animators and other computer professionals to translate
real objects into 3D computer images. Digitizing has important implications on the future of preserving
cultural artifacts. The museum would like one day to provide digital
artifacts to researchers via an online three-dimensional image
database of the museum’s collections. Accurate three-dimensional
objects can be used by researchers in lieu of actual objects—especially
with extremely fragile or rare objects that are in great demand
for study. An accurate database of such objects would be of great
benefit to researchers and still protect and preserve the artifacts
themselves. ARSC is proud to provide this kind of experience
to students, which benefits both themselves and the center. Like
most areas
of computer
science, the field of high performance computing is strikingly
lacking in minority professionals, both in terms of gender and
ethnicity. Although reviews of university programs feeding the
professional pool show some hope of closing the gender gap, there
remains a serious lack of ethnic diversity in graduating computer
science students entering the workforce. Programs such as the
ARSC summer intern program contribute to engaging students
from all
kinds of backgrounds in real-world experience in the industry,
while they are still in college.
For more information about the Alaska
Research Summer Challenge visit their website. 
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