REU Site: Network for Earthquake Engineering Simulation - Reducing Seismic Vulnerability

小乔治·E·布朗。地震工程模拟网络(NEES)是美国国家科学基金会资助的一个分布式实验室，旨在降低国家基础设施在大地震、海啸和其他大规模灾难破坏影响下的脆弱性。NEES合作实验室包括14个大型实验研究设施，这些设施配备了最先进的设备，包括振动台、海啸波盆地、现场测试设施、大型结构实验室和土工离心机。这些设施由先进的IT网络基础设施连接起来，允许实验室和进行测试的研究人员之间进行实时协作。这个相互关联的实验室系统使研究人员能够研究工程系统的响应，其规模和复杂性以前是不可能的。这种协作研究大大增加了我们对易受攻击系统的了解，加快了研究发现的速度，并将其整合到技术、设计规则和知识中，供工程从业者使用。这一为期三年的REU站点计划将为11名本科生提供一个独特的机会，让他们参与NEES项目，并参与利用NEES先进的网络基础设施。REU的学生将有各种机会与世界一流的研究人员和他们的研究生在结构、岩土工程和海啸缓解领域合作。这些对信息技术开发感兴趣的学生将与专家合作开发新的工具，这些工具可以成为支持NEES社区的网络基础设施网络的一部分。学生将把研究成果综合成学习资源，可以在NEEScomm IT团队开发的网络基础设施上共享。REU参与者还将在全国各地的几个实验室节点进行研究，并将使用3D虚拟世界技术在队列之间进行合作。除了研究项目，学生还将参与一系列丰富活动，以帮助他们成为更有信心的研究人员，包括一个迎新会议，这将有助于促进所有学生的社区建设，提供一个向学生介绍地震工程和NEES基础知识的技术计划，提供沟通培训和有效的图书馆研究，并提供关于研究生院的信息。团队建设活动也将是帮助发展队列的重要方案要素。俄勒冈州立大学的学生将参加海啸避难所挑战，这是一项教育和推广活动，地址是NEES@OregonState。参与者将至少进行一次实地考察，他们将被要求通过多媒体演示在虚拟环境中进行报告。在为期10周的REU计划结束时，另一个NEES设施地点将主办青年研究员研讨会。这个项目为期两天，主要的焦点是学生对他们的期末研究的陈述。该计划将包括设施参观，与主旨演讲者的简短技术计划，学生研究报告，以及最佳报告奖的最终晚宴。学生们将通过与其他几个使用3D虚拟世界的NSF REU项目的学生举行虚拟研究研讨会来为这次活动做准备。拟议的活动有哪些更广泛的影响？首席调查员计划招募一批不同的学生，参与NEEScom的研究人员和附属机构网络。他们致力于吸引代表性不足的学生，并致力于在NEES计划、地震工程界和整个工程界建立多样性，从STEM职业生涯中代表性不足的群体中招募50%的参与者，包括妇女、少数族裔和残疾人。

The George E. Brown, Jr. Network for Earthquake Engineering Simulation (NEES) is an NSF funded distributed laboratory aimed at reducing the vulnerability of the nation's infrastructure to the damaging effects of large earthquakes, tsunamis, and other large scale disasters. The NEES collaboratory includes 14 large-scale experimental research facilities that house state-of-the-art equipment including shake tables, tsunami wave basins, field testing facilities, large-scale structural laboratories, and geotechnical centrifuges. The facilities are linked by an advanced IT cyberinfrastructure, allowing real time collaboration among laboratories and researchers doing testing. This interlinked system of laboratories enables researchers to study the response of engineered systems at a scale and complexity not possible before. This collaborative research has significantly increased our knowledge of vulnerable systems, accelerating the rate at which research discoveries are made and integrated into technologies, design rules, and knowledge for use by engineering practitioners. This three-year REU Site program will provide a unique opportunity for eleven undergraduate students to be involved in NEES projects and be engaged in utilizing NEES advanced cyberinfrastructure. The REU students will have a variety of opportunities to work with world class researchers and their graduate students in the areas of structures, geotechnical engineering and tsunami mitigation. Those students interested in information technology development will work with experts to develop new tools that can become part of the cyberinfrastructure network supporting the NEES community. Students will synthesize research outcomes into learning resources that can be shared on the cyberinfrastructure being developed by the NEEScomm IT team. REU participants will also perform research at several laboratory nodes around the country, and will collaborate between the cohorts using 3D virtual world technologies. In addition to the research projects, students will be engaged in a series of enrichment activities that will help them become more confident as researchers, including an orientation meeting which will help foster community building among all the students, provide a technical program that introduces the basics of earthquake engineering and NEES to the students, provide training in communication and effective library research, and provide information about graduate school. Team building activities will also be an important program element to help develop the cohort. REU students will participate in the Tsunami Shelter Challenge, developed as an education and outreach activity at NEES@oregonstate. Participants will go on at least one field trip which they will be required to report on in the virtual environment through a multimedia presentation. At the end of the 10-week REU program another NEES facility site, will host the Young Researcher Symposium. This program will be two days, and the main focus will be student presentations of their final research. The program will include a facility tour, short technical program with a keynote speaker, the presentation of student research, and a final dinner with awards for best presentation. Students will prepare for this event through a Virtual Research Symposium with students from several other NSF REU programs using a 3D virtual world. What are the broader impacts of the proposed activity? The Principal Investigators plan to recruit a diverse pool of students to engage with the NEEScom network of researchers and affiliates. They are committed to attracting underrepresented students and aim to build diversity within the NEES program, the earthquake engineering community, and the engineering community as a whole by recruiting 50% of its participants from underrepresented groups in STEM careers, including women, minorities and persons with disabilities.