In the fall of 2021, Dr. Marcus Bond at Southeast Missouri State University, Dr. Jeff Woodford at Missouri Western State University, and Mr. Chip Byers at MOREnet had a terrific idea: since computers are so powerful nowadays, and they are used for all manner of scientific research, why not bring supercomputing to the undergraduate curriculum, so that they may be better prepared with the tools and knowledge that they will need in today’s scientific world? At this moment, the Computational Infusion for Missouri Undergraduate Science & Education (CIMUSE) consortium was born.
So Marcus and Chip applied for, and won, an NSF planning grant to try to bring this idea into fruition, with Jeff helping out when needed. We organized a workshop hosted at MOREnet HQ in Columbia, Missouri, in the summer of 2022, inviting STEM professors at predominately undergraduate institutions (PUIs) all over Missouri. We explained what a supercomputer was, why it was so awesome, described our terrific idea, and invited all who were willing to participate in a grant-writing effort to acquire a supercomputer for PUI use. We picked up several brave volunteers along the way who offered to be a part of this effort: Dr. Colin DeGraf at Truman State University, Dr. Xiaoyuan Suo at Webster University, and Dr. Baoqiang Yan at Missouri Western State University. We set to work in writing a Campus Cyberinfrastructure Regional proposal.
However, we still faced one big hurdle: if we were successful in our grant efforts, where would this supercomputer be located? Marcus and Jeff took this idea to our respective campus admins, who very politely said that while it’s a great idea, we can’t really afford to host a supercomputer on either of our campuses. They are big, noisy, expensive to run, and who’s going to maintain them? While Marcus and Jeff were having zero success trying to convince their admins on the awesomeness of supercomputers, Chip stepped in to save the day. He said, “Why don’t we host the supercomputer at the University of Missouri-Columbia? They already have the resources needed to maintain one. I’m sure they’d be willing to help us out.” And so the partnership between the CIMUSE Consortium and the University of Missouri Research Support Solutions (RSS) team came into existence.
We submitted our proposal on March 1, 2023, and on August 8, 2023, we were notified that the proposal was funded!
In the meantime, we hosted a second CIMUSE Workshop on August 1-2, where we found even more interest in using supercomputers in the undergraduate STEM curriculum.
So between August 8, 2023, and September 10, 2024, we drafted a formal legal agreement for acquisition, operation and maintenance of the supercomputer, we created the legal framework for our consortium, we purchased, installed, and tested the supercomputer, and we developed software, conducted simulations, performed calculations, trained students, and engaged faculty for using the supercomputer.
We want to bring supercomputing to all STEM undergraduates at PUIs in the state of Missouri. We believe passionately that alongside commonplace laboratory equipment in all of the STEM classes that undergraduates take – physicists learn about oscilloscopes, chemists learn about pH meters, biologists learn about microscopes, astronomers learn about telescopes, and much much more besides – they also ought to learn about supercomputers, since they are also types of instrumentation that are now so essential to modern scientific research.