Interdisciplinary Scientific Computation at Ohio Wesleyan University

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This award supports the continuation of the REU site at Ohio Wesleyan University focusing on interdisciplinary scientific computation. This site has an RET component integrated into the site. Each undergraduate participant will work on a ten-week research project under the guidance of an Ohio Wesleyan University faculty member in one of the following disciplines: astronomy, computer science, mathematics/statistics, and physics. High school science teachers will work on similar projects for a six week period. The research projects will focus on one or more aspects of scientific computation, such as: numerical (coding in a "traditional" programming language), symbolic (using a computer algebra program such as Mathematica®), and data visualization. An important goal of the site is to make participants aware of the ability of computational techniques to cross disciplinary boundaries, i.e. to be effective at solving problems of interest in many different fields of scientific inquiry. Weekly meetings, in which individual research groups will give progress reports and all participants will be able to discuss the projects, will foster a sense of community among the participants and point out the strengths of computational techniques to tackle problems in varying disciplines. A parallel computing cluster, owned by the university, will be available for participants to use on their projects. A series of weekly, half-hour, faculty-led seminars will introduce participants to widely used computational tools, such as: symbolic computing with Mathematica®, methods of data fitting, numerical techniques for solving differential equations, and more. This award is co-funded by the Division of Physics, the Division of Mathematical Sciences, and the Office of Cyberinfrastructure.