MRI-R2: Acquisition of a High Performance Computing cluster with a fast interconnect to enable shared-use, college-wide computational investigations at Hamilton College

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This award is funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Public Law 111-5). With this award from the Major Research and Instrumentation (MRI) program, Adam Van Wynsberghe, Wei-Jen Chang, Natalia V. Connolly and Nathan Goodale of Hamilton College will acquire and operate a high-performance Beowulf-style computing cluster. This computing cluster will enable faculty in the departments of chemistry, physics, biology and anthropology to employ cutting edge computational technology in their research labs and classrooms. Research projects to be investigated include studies of the eukaryote tree of life, development of new tools for the study of dark energy, studies of infrared galaxies, examination of ribonuclease catalysis and a survey of influenza neuraminidase inhibitors.A computing cluster is a group of linked computers that work in concert to achieve vastly more computational power than the individual machines. These clusters make it possible to solve complex problems in areas such as molecular dynamics simulations and statistical analysis that require extensive computational power. The computational infrastructure made available by this award will be used in sophisticated research projects and in courses across a variety of disciplines introducing numerous undergraduate students at Hamilton College to scientific computing.