Undergraduate Research Challenge Internship Program

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Kennicott Glacier, near McCarthy, Alaska. Photo by Tim Stallard

DEADLINE FOR SUMMER INTERNSHIPS
Tuesday, March 17, 2009, 5:00 pm AKDT

The Alaska Research Summer Challenge is a summer intern program for undergraduate students from U.S. universities to spend the summer in Alaska at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. Interns work under the direction of the Program Manager at the Arctic Region Supercomputing Center (ARSC) and are assigned projects where they work under the day-to-day mentorship of individual researchers on active research projects. These mentors are composed of senior staff and faculty members. Major objectives are to promote interests in arctic research, develop research skills, and become familiar with modern supercomputing. Minority students are particularly encouraged to apply.

In 2008, projects included the following:

Computational chemistry: Gaussian Calculations on Halide Complexes of Rhodium, Iridium, and Ruthenium Stabilized with Various Phosphine Derivatives; Mineral precipitation pathways in aquatic systems
Atmospheric sciences: Understanding of Atmospheric Phenomena using WRF; Implementation of a WRF portal environment at ARSC; Computational weather forecasting enhancements and presentation; Output products for computational wildfire smoke prediction
Data intensive computing: Grid Information Retrieval
Computational methods: Large-scale eigensystem creation and interaction; Supercomputer scheduling analysis and optimization; Benchmarking supercomputers
Next-generation computing: Acceleration technologies; GPU programming; Parallel Global Address Space (PGAS) languages
Ice sheet modeling: Development of the Parallel Ice Sheet Model (PISM)

Areas of interest for projects in 2009 include, but are not limited to, the following:

Weather: Building on its twice-daily Alaska forecast, utilized directly by the National Weather Service and others, there is both a practical and a research focus on ARSC’s use of the WRF model.
Smoke and fire: Due to heavy recent wildfire seasons, ARSC has interests in tying together remote sensing, land surface models, and weather predictions to better understand smoke and fire behavior. These products will be useful for wildfire fighting and mitigation.
Climate study and the water cycle: This is a major utilization area for ARSC’s supercomputers, and addressed by numerous campus researchers.
Benchmarking/performance: ARSC is not just a consumer of large-scale systems, but also a center actively engaged in acquiring, evaluating and understanding next-generation computing technologies. Interns gain early access to such technologies, and assist mentors in communicating findings.
Integrated modeling: Arctic Systems Model (ASM) under development at UAF addresses boundary layers, model coupling, and other challenges in bringing domain-specific models (such as sea ice, ocean currents, and the atmosphere) together.
Acceleration technologies: Experience with technologies to get more computational power from emerging areas of importance. Hands-on programming and evaluation of the cell processor, multi-core CPUs, graphics processing units (GPUs), and field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs).

Program Dates: Monday, June 8, 2009 through Friday, August 14, 2009

Application Deadline: Tuesday, March 17, 2009, 5:00 pm AKDT

ARSC Decision Date: Friday, March 27, 2009, 5:00 pm AKDT

Applicant Commitment Date: Friday, April 17, 2009, 5:00 pm AKDT

Related opportunities through the Department of Defense: Through the Department of Defense, you can also apply for the JEOM internship. Four interns from this program are anticipated for ARSC this summer. You can apply to both, but note that the ARSC deadline is earlier. The summer program and schedule is the same for both, with the same salary, etc. For more information, visit: http://www.hpcmo.hpc.mil/community/JEOM/appprocess.php

Related opportunities through NOAA: If you are interested in operational weather forecasting and technologies used by weather forecasting offices, ARSC's colleagues in the Fairbanks Weather Forecasting Office of the National Weather Service invite you to apply for the NWS Student Temporary Employment Program (STEP). The FAI WFO is located next door to ARSC on the UAF campus. Interns in STEP will be integrated (as interests and program needs allow) with the ARSC interns. For information, view the application online: pafg.arh.noaa.gov/STEPAnnouncement.pdf (pdf).

Arctic Region Supercomputing Center
PO Box 756020, Fairbanks, AK 99775 | voice: 907-450-8600 | email: