Author Archives: Elizabeth Leake

To apply, please complete the survey by April 30, 2024.

Note that there are separate applications for US and international candidates.

ART: Artificial intelligence (AI), Research computing and Training is for advanced cyberinfrastructure (CI) professionals who support research computing on their campuses and conduct outreach in rural K-20 education environments. We will explore the benefits and risks associated with AI in academia, and share strategies to protect data privacy, security and sovereignty. ART@SC24 will convene in Atlanta, Georgia November 15-16, ahead of the Supercomputing Conference, SC24, November 17-22. 

This will be the sixth in a series of SC co-located workshops or events that STEM-Trek Nonprofit has hosted since 2015. The previous five were supported by the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF; supplements to existing grants, or individual awards), and donations to STEM-Trek from Google and others. The first, in collaboration with Executive …

STEM-Trek hosted a pre-conference workshop Nov. 10-11, ahead of the Supercomputing Conference in Denver, Colorado, November 12-17, 2023. This event has passed, but details are available here:

NRG@SC23-Agenda-FINAL2Download

STEM-Trek Nonprofit has facilitated a series of workshops and events that are co-located with the annual Supercomputing Conference since 2015. The first, in collaboration with Executive Director Dan Stanzione at the Texas Advanced Computing Center (TACC), was for systems administrators and research facilitators held just prior to SC15 in Austin, Texas. The second: “HPC On Open Ground@SC16,” was focused on food security science. URISC@SC17 provided training on high-speed networks and best practices associated with cybersecurity. Activities were less communal at SC20-21 with “ScienceSlam” online competitions. In 2022, we held the first in-person workshop in five years titled, EarthSci@SC22.

Our workshop series welcomes applications from ACCESS Campus Champions in EPSCoR states and territories, …

Happy New Year, everyone! – Elizabeth Leake (STEM-Trek Founder and Director)

While volunteer work for STEM-Trek nourishes my soul, regular employment pays my bills. This year, I started my dream job that satisfies both! I joined Boise State University in January as Director of Research Computing Services where I lead a talented team of professionals who support a fascinating research portfolio. 

I drove to Boise from Iowa City in late May to find a new home and returned in late July with a U-Haul. I also drove to Boston for PEARC22, and Dallas for SC22. Among friends and frequent travelers in my network, many suspect that they caught COVID on planes, so I’ve been driving more than usual. Enterprise loves me!

Some speak of the pre- and post-covid eras as if it’s finished with us, but I remain gun-shy. In January 2020, I went into self-imposed lock-down after returning from …

Thank you to all who submitted SC21 blog posts. Here are our featured bloggers:

Marcus Bond (Southeast Missouri State University)

SC Reboot – Every bit as engaging!

Arianna Martin (Southwestern Oklahoma State University)

Kinship and Community @SC21

Beyza Dagli (STEM-Trek)

Beyza’s SC21 Blog Days 1&2

Marcelina Nagales (Florida State University)

Marcelina’s SC21 Blog, Days 1&2

Computing and the Humanities with Vint Cerf

Eight contestants competed for travel awards and more at the second annual STEM-Trek ScienceSlam.

Judges included six families and four experts – they cast their ballots by Monday, October 9. Ramsha Aasim (Georgia Tech) won first place by a landslide, and Badisa Mosesane (U-Botswana) was a clear second. Four were tied for third!

After a final “slam-o-rama” where the audience broke the tie on October 15, Miranda Chidemo (Zimbabwe Centre for HPC) placed third and Ismet Dagli (Colorado School of Mines) came in at fourth. Others who didn’t place won a travel grant and SC21 tech program registration waiver (including workshops and tutorials). The full playlist is available here.

SC is the International Conference for High-Performance Computing, Networking, Storage, and Analysis.

ScienceSlam@SC20 “legacy” winners were offered registration waivers, and an additional five XSEDE Campus Champions from EPSCoR states – four from Missouri within driving …

The judges have voted!

Please join us on Friday, October 15 at 4:00 p.m. CST for the final Slam-O-Jama!

To receive your invitation, please register here by 5 p.m. CST on Thursday. A Zoom link will be sent to registrants prior to the event.

Contenders, judges and the community are invited to participate. During this event we will announce first, second, third and fourth-place awards! Prizes include SC21 tech program registration waivers, travel grants and more.

For more information about ScienceSlam@SC21, with links to last year’s event, visit this page.

Thank you Google, Micron Technology and SC21 General Chair Bronis de Supinski (LLNL)!

Thank you Aunshul Rege (Temple University) for including STEM-Trek on Temple’s OWL list: “Organizations We Love!” Dr. Rege is an associate professor in Temple’s Department of Criminal Justice and leads cybersecurity competitions that are supported by the U.S. National Science Foundation, award number 1742747.

Did you see this HPCwire article? Check it out.

By Baylen Brus, HPC Systems Administrator

As a young professional just beginning my career in High-Performance Computing (HPC) Systems Administration, I was honored to have the opportunity to attend the Practice & Experience in Advanced Research Computing conference (PEARC19) in Chicago, Illinois last summer.

With my only HPC experience being with the Argon cluster at the University of Iowa, I was excited to learn about technologies outside of my environment and how other clusters are built and maintained. PEARC furthered my knowledge of the developments in HPC, and cyberinfrastructure, in general.

The thing I find the most fascinating about the field is the amount of open-source development that makes everyone’s lives easier when it comes to managing these massive systems. Hearing people talk about what software packaging was like before Spack or OpenHPC were around makes me pretty glad I’m starting in the field while these tools are …

By Trey Godbolt, Junior at the University of Iowa, Business Analytics program

Day 1:

The first day of the Practice & Experience in Advanced Research Computing (PEARC19) conference in Chicago, Illinois began with the car ride from Iowa City. I rode with Elizabeth Leake (STEM-Trek), and we picked up another student, Badisa Mosesane (University of Botswana), at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Badisa was completing a three-month cyberinfrastructure internship at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications. After picking up Badisa, we all traveled to Oak Park, Illinois and the AirBnB we would stay at for the remainder of the trip. After dropping off our luggage, we went to the Hyatt Regency in Chicago for the Student Program Opening; a brief orientation to the conference.

Day 2:

This was my first full day at PEARC19. I was scheduled to work as a student volunteer for the session titled, …