Louisiana's Research Infrastructure Improvement Strategy

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The goal of the Louisiana EPSCoR research infrastructure improvement project is to advance interdisciplinary research across the State's institutions of higher education by establishing a statewide research and information technology infrastructure that integrates selected areas of scientific strength with development of cyberinfrastructure (CI) tools. The specific project objectives are: (1) to develop a core of four focused interdisciplinary research projects that link theoretical and experimental investigation and drive CI development, while contributing to science that is critical to the State's economy; (2) to develop four modular cyber tools that facilitate management and mining of data, development of complex simulations, improvements in visualization, and the scheduling of shared computational, network, data, and visualization resources; and (3) to create a comprehensive educational program that integrates the proposed research to benefit K-12, undergraduate and graduate students, postdoctoral researchers, and faculty. The project focuses on two major thrusts: (1) Research Enterprise and (2) Education and Outreach. Research Enterprise. The project is driven by two science research themes: (1) sensors and systems and (2) simulation and modeling. These two themes underlie the development of four synergistic, interdisciplinary research projects and four modular cyber tools. Interdisciplinary Research. The four interdisciplinary research projects are: (1) the expansion of biotechnology research (DNA diagnostics and forensics) conducted at the Center for Biomodular Multiscale Systems established by the previous EPSCoR grant, (2) antibody-based biosensor design and fabrication, (3) computational fluid dynamics/retinal research, and (4) hurricane- and storm-surge prediction. These projects overlap in areas, such as computational fluid dynamics, molecular dynamics , and CI requirements in both hardware (networks, computers, and distributed file systems) and software (data management, portals, visualization, and simulation). Development of Cyber Tools. This component of the proposed research enterprise, intended to advance all aspects of the proposed interdisciplinary research projects, includes four Work Packages that are designed to facilitate development of (1) scheduling and data services, (2) information services and portals, (3) visualization services, and (4) application services, toolkits, and algorithms. Education and Outreach. Education and outreach (E&O) efforts are designed to stimulate long-term research competitiveness of tenure-track junior faculty and students, and to engage Louisiana's large population of underrepresented minorities in STEM careers. A broad range of E&O activities provide research and study opportunities for higher education faculty and students, as well as various activities engage K-12 students and the general population.