Technology for Higher Education 2000

In August 1997, the University of Washington received one of the 12 inaugural awards in Intel Corporation's "Technology for Education 2000" program. (Other recipients were Caltech, CMU, Cornell, Georgia Tech, MIT, Purdue, Berkeley, Michigan, USC, Texas, and Wisconsin.)

The faculty coordinators of the University of Washington proposal were George Lake (Department of Astronomy) Ed Lazowska (Department of Computer Science & Engineering), and Greg Zick (Department of Electrical Engineering). An overview of the proposal can be found here; the full proposal (a Word document) can be found here.

The University of Washington project contains 26 separate sub-projects, clustered into three major theme areas: high-performance applications, digital media, and educational infrastructure. There is a cross-cutting coordination structure in which Professors Lake, Lazowska, and Zick each work with sub-projects in various theme areas (see the initials after the sub-projects below).

1. High-Performance Applications: Creating a showcase for high performance applications on Intel Architecture systems -- cutting-edge high-demand scientific and engineering applications such as Computational Astrophysics and VLSI design, and programs aimed at educating the next generation of experts in these fields, such as our new Applied and Computational Mathematical Sciences program.

   High-Performance Applications

   • ASC-1.1, Chemistry Laboratory, Hannes Jonsson (GL)
   • ASC-1.2, Applied and Computational Mathematical Sciences Instructional Laboratory, Randy LeVeque (EL)
   • ASC-1.3, LONEOS, Chris Stubbs (GL)
   • ASC-1.4, Sloan Digital Sky Survey, Tom Quinn (GL)
   • ASC-1.5, TimeSlice: A Digital Movie of the Sky, Craig Hogan (GL)
   • ASC-1.6, Super Kamiokande, Jeff Wilkes (GL)
   • ASC-1.7, GLAST: Gamma-Ray Large Angle Space Telescope, Toby Burnett (GL)
   • ASC-1.8, UWXAFS: X-ray Spectroscopy Analysis and Visualization Software, John Rehr (GL)
   • ASC-1.9, Computational Molecular Biology, David Baker and Leroy Hood (GL)
   • ASC-1.10, SimTheatre: A Venue for High-End Visualizations, George Lake (GL)
   • ASC-1.11, SuperCluster: High-Performance PC Cluster Computing, George Lake (GL) (Applications include LONEOS, the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, Large Scale Structure and Galaxy Formation, and Protein Folding; First Year Plan for SuperCluster and SimTheatre.)
   • ASC-2, Computational Materials Science Laboratory, Raj Bordia (GZ)
   • ASC-3, Computational Fluid Dynamics, Uri Shumlak and Scott Eberhardt; Dennis Lettenmaier; Phil Malte and David Nicol (GZ)
   • ASC-4, Computational Structural Mechanics: Design for Manufacturing, Mark Tuttle (GZ)
   • ASC-5, Wireless Communications and Electronic Packaging, Yasuo Kuga (GZ)
   • ASC-6, Haptic Simulation for Virtual Reality, Blake Hannaford (GZ)
   • ASC-7, EE VLSI Design, Mani Soma (GZ)

2. Digital Media: Developing and deploying advanced digital media applications for the educational environment, based upon Intel Architecture systems. Applications and underlying fundamental research include computer graphics, computer animation, digital video, scientific visualization, multimedia libraries, desktop telecollaboration, and digital learning on demand (including digital video servers and the distribution and desktop infrastructure for streamed and non-real-time digital video). Much of this work will be conducted within the framework of our multi-institutional Next Generation Internet (NGI) and Research TV (RTV) consortium initiatives. We firmly believe that the potential for growth in this arena over the next five years transcends all others.

   Digital Media

   • DM-1, CSE Gigabit-to-the-Desktop Initiative, Ed Lazowska, Brian Bershad, Ron Johnson, and John Zahorjan (EL)
   • DM-2, EE Multimedia Course-on-Demand System, Jenq-Neng Hwang, Ming-Ting Sun, Mani Soma, and Greg Zick (GZ)
   • DM-3, UW Digital Library Project, Greg Zick and Geri Bunker (GZ)
   • DM-4, Structure-Based Visual Access to Biomedical Library Information, Jim Brinkley, Brent Stewart, and Sherrilynne Fuller (GZ)
   • DM-5, Highly-Reliable Networks for Cardiology, Siva Narayanan (GZ)
   • DM-6, Laboratory for Animation Art, Shawn Brixey and Richard Karpen (EL)
   • DM-7, CSE Computer Graphics Education and Research, David Salesin and Brian Curless (EL)
   • See also the two Educational Infrastructure projects below

3. Educational Infrastructure: Demonstrating the use of highest-end Intel Architecture server clusters for supporting the "educational enterprise" -- administrative computing, electronic mail, large scale shared file systems, and multimedia web services. As one of a number of examples, the University of Washington currently supports 60,000 email accounts on two clusters of 50 RISC Unix workstations each; this has served as a national and international reference for the (unnamed) vendor of these workstations and has propagated similar architectures across higher education and the private sector. We wish to begin the migration of this enterprise support to the Intel Architecture. We have a commitment from Microsoft to partner in this endeavor.

   Educational Infrastructure

   • EI-1, CSE Educational Infrastructure, Ed Lazowska, Brian Bershad, and John Zahorjan (EL)
   • EI-2, C&C Educational Infrastructure, Terry Gray, Letcher Ross, Brad Greer, and Ed Lazowska (EL)