PEARC17

Attracting, retaining and developing female talent across the world is not only essential to an organization performance-- it's a business imperative. Learn how to be a leader of positive change for women in HPC. Learn how to create the social infrastructure to give women and other underrepresented groups access to the education, resources and opportunities they need to fully reach their potential. Also hear about how important it is to be focused on the pipeline of girls staying in science, technology, engineering and math in the learning paths. Come to hear about what IBM Canada and XSEDE are doing to help drive engagement of girls in STEM and be prepared to have an open discussion about what still needs to be done to increase the numbers of girls pursuing STEM education and careers.

Presenters

• Lorna Rivera, Georgia Institute of Technology
• Krista Shibata, IBM Canada Program Leader STEM

Visualization taps into the very best capabilities of our brains, transforming data that is fundamentally abstract as numbers into something that communicates and illuminates information ranging from the simple to the complex. Visualization researchers, developers, practitioners and educators routinely work across traditional discipline boundaries, oftentimes in teams of people that come from a diverse blend of backgrounds. With a looming global workforce shortage in those educated in high-tech, we have adopted advanced computing for social change as a means of engaging our current student population to acquire high tech skills in the context of working on relevant social issues that are important to us all. This paper provides rationale for our recent approaches, discussing the looming shortage in the high tech sector. We also present case study data, including evaluation data and present merits of possible changes for our approach. We discuss bringing the universal language of visualization to bear on problems that have the potential to make significant societal impact and encourage and foster innovation at every step.

The need for college graduates with high-performance computing (HPC) skills is rapidly increasing with the increased interest in tasks requiring big data processing. Major needs in medicine, geosciences, and data analytics, among other disciplies, will drive demand for an HPC literate workforce. This paper presents a new Computer Science minor covering high-performance computing (HPC) and a state-wide competition that provide a structured environment for development of graduates with the skills needed to enter the HPC workforce. The new HPC minor is designed to provide undergraduate science and engineering students with a foundation in HPC basics to pursue advanced HPC study in graduate school or enter the HPC workforce. The minor is available to a wide range of disciplines with a minimum of additional required coursework to minimize overall college cost. The HPC competition provides a structured environment for high-school, undergraduate, and graduate students to gain experience in HPC and to spark their interest.

An evaluation of services offered by Research Computing at the University of Colorado Boulder is presented. This evaluation is attempting to determine the impact of services on existing users, as well as how to introduce new users to HPC resources offered by the group. Preliminary results indicate changes informed by user input have been successful.

The structure and dynamics of proteins are an essential part of understanding the molecular foundations of complex biological processes and serve an important role in the field of computational biology. Biomolecular visualization software can serve as an entryway to begin exploration of, and expose students to, protein structure-function relationships and aid in their development in basic science knowledge. In addition, technical skills and effective writing and presentation of scientific material are critical for students entering the field of bioinformatics and computational biology. Training and education utilizing biomolecular visualization software and honing writing and presentation skills are often reserved for special studies or higher-level coursework. Presenting more advanced concepts and skills that can connect ideas from introductory level classes in chemistry, biology, and physics earlier in the curriculum is imperative to success in advanced classes and application in research settings for undergraduate students. Thus, student-centered activities that can satisfy the development of new skills and critical thinking, in addition to computational knowledge and practice, provide foundational principles for developing future scientists and increasing their chances of success. By designing a one-credit hour, introduction to biomolecular visualization course, freshman biochemistry undergraduate students were exposed to higher-level thinking and application, and gained skills in biomolecular visualization and scientific presentation. In addition, biomolecular visualization and molecular modeling were used to introduce the students to the field of computational biology and computational skills such as command-line usage, unix interfaces, and parallel computing. Overall, this study discusses the benefits of introducing bimolecular visualization software early in the undergraduate education curriculum and the potential for implementation on a larger scale in order to prepare students by providing discipline-specific foundations relevant to the use of computational tools.

Meeting your workforce development goals in HPC will require cultural shifts and transformation of your recruiting and retention strategies. Overcoming bias is a challenge for any organization. Join our workshop with presenter Kim Stephens of IBM to learn how overcome unconscious and conscious bias in the workplace.

Meeting your workforce development goals in HPC will require cultural shifts and transformation of your recruiting and retention strategies. Overcoming bias is a challenge for any organization. Join our workshop with presenter Kim Stephens of IBM to learn how overcome unconscious and conscious bias in the workplace.