Computational Infrastructure for Brain Research: Workshops on Methods and Infrastructure for Scalable Computing in Neuroscience

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Computational and data-intensive neuroscience has been growing rapidly. However, many neuroscientists are not familiar with scalable computational approaches and the diverse, widely available shared computational resources that can be used to accelerate neuroscientific data analysis and modeling, such as the advanced computing resources of the Open Science Grid and the XSEDE network, among others. Many computing infrastructure experts also know little about the computational and data challenges in contemporary neuroscience. This project will address these issues through a pair of multidisciplinary workshops and development of training materials designed to bring together and educate both the neuroscientists and computational infrastructure communities. In the first workshop, leading neuroscientists and computing infrastructure experts will share computational practices to identify critical theory and best practices for matching neuroscience computational approaches with appropriate infrastructure configurations. The second workshop will be timed to coincide with the 2018 annual meeting of the Cognitive Science Society, to be held in Madison, Wisconsin. The overall goal is dissemination of these best practices and accompanying practical training on advanced computing resources to accelerate neuroscience discovery. This project therefore aligns with the NSF mission to promote the progress of science and to advance the national health, prosperity and welfare.At the Center for High Throughput Computing (CHTC) at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, breakthrough progress in neuroscience has been enabled by integrating computational expertise and domain expertise via Research Computing Facilitators. This model has demonstrated that scientific paradigm shifts can be achieved by human-driven matchmaking to pair research programs, computational methods experts, and appropriate computational infrastructure configurations. The workshops will foster replication of this matchmaking approach to impact the broader neuroscience community. The overall goal is to empower brain researchers to select the scalable computational resources that are most appropriate for their specific research programs, to achieve dramatic rapid progress in the field.This award by the CISE Division of Advanced Cyberinfrastructure is jointly supported by the CISE Division of Information and Intelligent Systems, with funds associated with the NSF Understanding the Brain and BRAIN Initiative activities, and for developing national research infrastructure for neuroscience. This project also aligns with NSF objectives under the National Strategic Computing Initiative.