blog posts

• Virtual Reality (VR) Demo Day

  Aug 14, 2019 1:15 pm0 views

  The VR@Illinois campus network, in partnership with the Virtual Reality Club at Illinois, presents:  Virtual Reality (VR) Demo Day on Friday, August 30, 2019, from 1pm to 5pm.

  Faculty, students, and staff are invited to join us at multiple sites across campus on VR Demo Day to explore how these technologies are being used in higher education. Visit each participating site to demo over ten different types of VR and AR headsets and experience immersive programs simulating archaeological digs, 3D anatomical pregnancy simulation, 3D art and modeling, 360 Videos, Google Earth, games, and more. Come and learn about what VR and AR resources are available to you across campus.

  For more information on VR Demo Day, visit us online at: https://go.illinois.edu/VRDemoDay

• NCSA COLLABORATES WITH NGA TO CREATE THE WORLD’S MOST POWERFUL GEOSPATIAL SYSTEM

  Aug 7, 2019 9:30 am0 views

  The National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign has announced a new collaboration between the Blue Waters Project, the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA), the University of Minnesota and The Ohio State University to produce digital elevation models (DEM) of the entire Earth, among other geospatial research projects.

• Food and Family Conference 2019 - Registration Open!

  Jul 29, 2019 10:15 am0 views

  Food and Family Conference | September 25-26, 2019 | Chicago, IL

  Join the nation's foremost experts in human nutrition, obesity research, and child and family health at the Food and Family Conference 2019. Hosted by the Family Resiliency Center at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in partnership with the Christopher Family Foundation.

  Click here to register: https://appserv7.admin.uillinois.edu/FormBuilderSurvey/Survey/uiuc_famil... .

  Detailed agenda coming soon!

• Revisions to the OPRS Exempt Research Policy

  Jul 29, 2019 10:15 am0 views

  The OPRS has revised its exempt research policy. The revisions will go into place August 1, 2019. Read about the changes and how OPRS is implementing them here. Researchers can also learn about the changes through our informational session on August 16, 2019. The session will take place from 10:00-10:30 am in Room 121 of 805 West Pennsylvania Avenue.

• Undergraduate Research & the Humanities: Challenges and Possibilities

  Jul 29, 2019 10:15 am0 views

  What will 21st century humanities pedagogy look like? How might we strengthen and diversify the humanities and engage and inspire a new generation of learners? What is already being done, and what new models and structures might we create, to shape a future of undergraduate research that re-centers the importance of the humanities in undergraduate education at Illinois?

  The Illinois Program for Research in the Humanities (IPRH) and the Illinois Office of Undergraduate Research (OUR) invite faculty and staff to participate in this important conversation, which will begin with a keynote by Ellen McClure, professor of French and Francophone Studies and History, and Director of the new Engaged Humanities Initiative (EHI) at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

  Please register for the conference by August 1.

• Partner Investment in 7 TESLA MRI Impacts Illinois Research, Patient Care

  Jul 29, 2019 10:15 am6 views

  Carle and University of Illinois leadership recently approved funding to purchase a MAGNETOM 7 Tesla (7T) magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scanner. They join an elite network of clinical facilities (currently one of only six nationwide) to offer patients access to this technology, the highest magnetic field imaging strength commercially available in the United States approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for brain and knee scans of patients greater than 66 lbs.

• Health Equity Scholars Poster Session and Celebration Luncheon

  Jul 17, 2019 3:00 pm0 views

  Please join us Wednesday, Aug. 7, 11 a.m. – 1 p.m., at the Beckman Institute for a poster session and recognition luncheon for our inaugural Health Equity Scholars program. You will have an opportunity to meet the scholars and learn more about their work with faculty mentors and community organizations to address health disparities.

  Learn more and RSVP by August 2.

• OPRS Office Hours - July 12

  Jul 10, 2019 1:15 pm2 views

  Friday July 12, 10am to noon.

  The Office for the Protection of Research Subjects (OPRS) will be hosting walk-in office hours. Staff reviewers will be available to assist you with your IRB protocol during this time. No appointment is needed. OPRS is located at 805 West Pennsylvania Avenue in Urbana.

• Deadline Extended | NIH Grant Writing Series Faculty Nominations

  Jul 10, 2019 1:15 pm0 views

  IHSI has extended the deadline for faculty nominations to participate in the complete National Institutes of Health (NIH) Grant Writing Series during the 2019 fall semester. Junior faculty (years 2-4) may nominate themselves with a letter of support from their department head, a copy of their CV, and a brief summary of their research interests. Pleasesubmit your nomination to Maggie Berg by July 12, 2019.

• Funding: NEH Media Projects: Production Grants

  Jul 2, 2019 11:15 am0 views

  Application deadline: August 14, 2019

  The NEH Media Projects: Production Grants program supports the production and distribution of documentary film, television, radio, and podcast projects that engage general audiences with humanities ideas in creative and appealing ways. 

• Call for Proposals: iConference 2020

  Jul 2, 2019 11:15 am2 views

  The Call for Proposals is now open for iConference 2020 in Borås, Sweden. The theme is Sustainable Digital Communities and there is a great deal of flexibility in presentation formats, from full papers, to workshops to colloquia. Submission deadlines vary by track, beginning September 16.

• Beckman Institute receives animal MRI

  Jul 2, 2019 11:15 am0 views

  Eighteen University of Illinois colleges, departments, and schools, along with a generous gift from the Roy J. Carver Charitable Trust, are funding the purchase of a Bruker 9.4 Tesla preclinical animal MRI system.

• Illinois Technology Services helps the College of Veterinary Medicine install new linear accelerator technology for cancer research

  Jul 2, 2019 11:15 am0 views

  The College of Veterinary Medicine (Vet Med) recently installed a state-of-the-art Varian TrueBeam® linear accelerator, used by radiation oncologists in cancer treatment and research. It is a level of technology found in only a few of the veterinary schools in all of North America. 

• Funding: ACRL Scholarly Communications Research Grants

  Jul 2, 2019 11:00 am0 views

  Application deadline: September 30, 2019

  The Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL) is allocating $30,000 in the 2020 fiscal year to offer grants of up to $5,000 each for new research in areas suggested by ACRL’s 2019 report Open and Equitable Scholarly Communications: Creating a More Inclusive Future.

• Midwest Big Data Hub successfully transitions to second phase with new NSF award

  Jul 2, 2019 10:45 am0 views

  The National Science Foundation (NSF) this month announced the second phase of funding for the regional Big Data Innovation Hub (BD Hubs) program. Under the planned four year, $4 million award, the Midwest Big Data Hub will continue to be led from the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. The Hub's priority focus areas will be co-led by five partner institutions in the region: Indiana University, Iowa State University, the University of Michigan, the University of Minnesota - Twin Cities, and the University of North Dakota.

• Black hole simulation solves a mystery about their accretion disks

  Jul 2, 2019 10:45 am0 views

  Scientists conducted the most detailed simulations of a black hole to date using a custom code and the GPUs on Blue Waters. A number of theoretical predictions regarding accretion disks have finally been validated.

• Scientists spearhead convergence of AI and HPC for cosmology

  Jul 2, 2019 10:00 am0 views

  Leveraging data generated by the Galaxy Zoo project, a team of scientists is now applying the power of artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance supercomputers to accelerate efforts to analyze the increasingly massive datasets produced by ongoing and future cosmological surveys.

• Linear Accelerator Exponentially Grows Oncology Program at Illinois Vet Med

  Jun 24, 2019 11:15 am0 views

  It’s been 25 years since Illinois opened its cancer care service. Over that period, the impact of the program has far exceeded its size. We can credit a handful of clinician-scientists who have built a strong foundation, making the program’s outsized achievements possible.

• Artificial photosynthesis transforms carbon dioxide into liquefiable fuels

  Jun 18, 2019 8:30 am0 views

  Chemists at the University of Illinois have successfully produced fuels using water, carbon dioxide, and visible light through artificial photosynthesis. By converting carbon dioxide into more complex molecules like propane, green energy technology is now one step closer to using excess carbon dioxide to store solar energy – in the form of chemical bonds – for use when the sun is not shining and in times of peak demand.

• Supercomputers Help Engineers Discover New Materials for Solar Cells and LEDs

  Jun 11, 2019 9:30 am0 views

  Research engineers at the University of California San Diego have developed a high-throughput computational method using XSEDE-allocated resources to design new materials for next generation solar cells and LEDs. According to their calculations, these materials, called hybrid halide semiconductors, would be stable and exhibit excellent optoelectronic properties.

• Petascale Computing Hackathon - accepting applications through July 8!

  Jun 10, 2019 8:45 am0 views

  Date of Event: Sept 9-13, 2019

  Application Deadline: July 8, 2019

  The National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign is pleased to announce that team applications for the Blue Waters Petascale Computing Hackathon are now open.

  The hackathon is intended for research and development teams wanting to:

  • adapt their codes to run on petascale-class systems equipped with CPUs and/or GPUs,
  • optimize applications that already run on petascale computing systems,
  • accelerate machine learning and deep learning applications, or
  • implement other innovative uses of petascale computing systems.

• Tune in to the 2019 Illinois Quantum Computing Summer School at NCSA

  Jun 3, 2019 2:00 pm0 views

  NCSA will offer a remote broadcast of the Discovery Partners Institute’s 2019 Illinois Quantum Computing Summer School in NCSA 1030 June 17-20, 2019. Those interested in attending at NCSA are asked to RSVP by June 12, 2019.

  The Illinois Quantum Computing Summer School is an immersive educational experience for learning the basic principles and current applications of quantum computing. The school is open to students, postdocs, and faculty, with the targeted audience being theoreticians who have some background in classical computing but little expertise in quantum computation. The curriculum is designed to provide a "ground-up" introduction to the subject.

  View the full schedule. Questions may be directed to Jay Roloff, jayr@illinois.edu.

• Machine Learning Enables Scientists to Spot "Comma-Shaped Clouds," Extreme Weather

  Jun 3, 2019 9:30 am0 views

  Meteorologists can get time-critical help in spotting dangerous cloud formations using artificial intelligence (AI), according to scientists at Penn State and AccuWeather Inc. The team used a "machine learning" program running on XSEDE supercomputers to recognize a typical cloud formation known as comma-shaped clouds in satellite images. Their results detected up to 99 percent of the comma-shaped clouds and 64 percent of ensuing storms in 2011 and 2012 satellite images over the U.S. Their hope is to develop an accurate early warning system so that storm warnings can be issued more quickly than possible today.

• Register now for the Linux Clusters Institute (LCI) workshop

  May 29, 2019 12:00 pm0 views

  Registration is now open for the 2019 Linux Clusters Institute (LCI) Introductory Workshop,which will be held August 19-23, 2019 at the Rutgers University Inn & Conference Center in New Brunswick, NJ. This workshop will cover the fundamentals of setting up and administering a high-performance computing (HPC) cluster and will be led by leading HPC experts. 

• Smart City Illinois: Building Empathy with Better Infrastructure

  May 23, 2019 9:15 am0 views

  A team of Illinois undergraduate researchers collaborate with the city of Champaign to bridge the gap between data and people and re-envision technology infrastructure towards a smart city future.

• REU and NCSA SPIN Programs Panel Discussion

  May 22, 2019 1:00 pm2 views

  Join Women@NCSA on Wednesday, June 5 from 1:30-2:30pm in the NCSA atrium for a partnering panel discussion from REU and NCSA SPIN programs. This panel aims to discuss opportunities and pathways for women in STEM fields with undergraduate students. The panel will be followed by round table discussions on topics such as women in research, women in STEM, careers for women in research, etc. The event is open to all. We are looking for volunteer mentors to help drive the conversations during the round table discussion, please contact Alice Delage at adelage@illinois.edu if you are interested in volunteering. 

  Refreshments will be served. RSVP and invite others via our Facebook event! 

• U of I System transfers Research Park oversight to Urbana campus

  May 21, 2019 2:00 pm0 views

  The University of Illinois Board of Trustees transferred oversight of the University of Illinois Research Park from the U. of I. System to the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

  Trustees approved the Research Park in 1999 and authorized the University of Illinois Research Park LLC in 2000 as the formal entity to develop and operate research parks in support of the university’s economic development mission. On the endorsement of President Tim Killeen and Urbana campus Chancellor Robert Jones, the limited liability company’s Board of Managers voted in October to recommend that the Board of Trustees change the legal entity’s scope to focus solely on the Research Park in Urbana-Champaign.

• NCSA Special Lecture: "Cybersecurity to Enable Science: Hindsight & Vision from the NSF Cybersecurity Center of Excellence"

  May 21, 2019 10:00 am0 views

  Date: May 30, 2019, 10:00 AM
  Place: NCSA Auditorium
  Speaker: Von Welch, NSF Cybersecurity Center of Excellence

  How can cybersecurity play an enabling role in scientific research? This talk describes the first five years of experience from NSF Cybersecurity Center of Excellence, its vision for the next five, and its take on how cybersecurity supports scientific integrity, reproducibility, and productivity.

• Illinois REDCap now available campus-wide

  May 20, 2019 4:30 pm64 views

  IHSI is pleased to announce the campus-wide launch of Research Electronic Data Capture (REDCap), the renowned data collection and management application, at Illinois. REDCap is now available for investigators across the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign campus.

  If you would like to use Illinois REDCap for your research project, please visithealthinstitute.illinois.edu/REDCap and submit the Illinois REDCap user request form.

  LEARN MORE ABOUT ILLINOIS REDCAP

• Illini 4000 welcome reception - June 4

  May 20, 2019 4:30 pm0 views

  Help us welcome the 2019 Illini 4000 team to campus during their annual bike ride across the country at the Alice Campbell Alumni Center on June 4 at 4:00 PM.This student-led non-profit organization is dedicated to documenting the American cancer experience through The Portraits Project, raising funds for cancer research and patient support services, and spreading awareness for the fight against cancer through cross-country bike rides.

  GET DETAILS

• Mechanics, chemistry and biomedical research joins forces for noninvasive tissue therapy

  May 20, 2019 4:30 pm0 views

  A fortuitous conversation between two University of Illinois scientists has opened a new line of communication between biomedical researchers and the tissues they study. The new findings, reported in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, show that high-intensity focused ultrasound waves can penetrate biological tissue to activate molecules able to perform specific tasks.

• 2nd IBM PowerAI training workshop

  May 13, 2019 10:45 am0 views

  NCSA has recently deployed a powerful system for deep-learning as part of a Major Research Instrumentation (MRI) grant from the National Science Foundation.

  We are organizing a training workshop to help get started with ML and DL on POWER9 using PowerAI. Event attendance is open to the University of Illinois research community interested in using the system in their research.

  Please view the agenda and register for the workshop by Wednesday, May 22, 2019. Registration is on a first-come first served basis, as it is limited to the first 45 registrants per session.

• Registration open for Computational Genomics summer course

  May 13, 2019 10:30 am0 views

  Dates of Course: June 10-14, 2019

  This week-long intensive course for scientists and clinicians covers the basics of computational genomics, while integrating the latest technologies and computational methodologies. University of Illinois faculty teach lectures and lead hands-on lab exercises in a variety of subject areas including genome sequencing and assembly, polymorphism and variant analysis, epigenomics, and data visualization.

• Researchers update Illinois standards for storm frequencies

  May 13, 2019 10:15 am2 views

  As heavy rainstorms become more frequent and stronger than in the past, municipal drainage systems designed from outdated standards often fail, resulting in flooding and financial losses.

  Researchers at the Illinois State Water Survey (ISWS) have recently applied newer data to update ISWS Bulletin 70, the publication that provides the state standards for expected extreme storms.

• NCSA researcher employs supercomputer in Ohio gerrymandering case

  May 10, 2019 8:30 am0 views

  Dr. Wendy K. Tam Cho, a professor of Political Science, Statistics, Mathematics, Asian American Studies and Law at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and a Senior Research Scientist at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA), uses the Blue Waters supercomputer to analyze electoral maps. During a trial in the Southern District of Ohio, which concluded in March, Cho was called as an expert witness for the case where she presented an analysis based on more than 3 million simulations of possible electoral maps for Ohio. These simulations helped the court in assessing how likely and how much partisanship was part of the map-drawing process for a redistricting that occured in Ohio.

• Collaborative efforts produce clinical workflows for rapid genetic analysis

  May 6, 2019 4:30 pm0 views

  With individualized medicine—one of the holy grails of modern healthcare—diagnosis and treatment of patients would rely in part on each individual’s specific DNA profile, enabling truly personalized care. But in order for genetic information to contribute meaningfully to patient care, DNA testing has to be affordable and efficient. In 2017, the Mayo Clinic Center for Individualized Medicine (CIM) and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign embarked on a two-year Grand Challenge under the auspices of the Mayo Clinic & Illinois Alliance for Technology-Based Healthcare with the goal of making DNA analysis a possibility for every patient. The first aim of the project focused on finding faster methods for clinical analysis of the whole human genome.

• Ten Health Make-A-Thon Winners Announced

  May 6, 2019 4:15 pm0 views

  The inaugural Health Make-a-Thon, hosted by Carle Illinois College of Medicine in partnership with various units, including IHSI, was held April 13. An overflow crowd was on hand to see twenty teams present their ideas to a panel of "dolphin tank" judges, and ten of those teams were awarded $10,000 worth of idea support to turn their ideas into reality. With the resources from the Health Maker Lab, these citizen-scientists have the power to change the face of medicine, better human health, and leave a lasting impact.

• Campus Champion Publishes CURE Paper

  May 6, 2019 3:45 pm1 views

  For the past three years, several course-based undergraduate research experiences, called CUREs, have been led by Campus Champion and Assistant Professor of Inorganic Chemistry Chantal Stieber at California State Polytechnic University, Pomona (Cal Poly Pomona). Stieber has served as a Campus Champion since 2016, a program which was founded by XSEDE with the intent to help researcher, educators, and scholars use advanced digital capabilities to improve and accelerate their achievements. Stieber recently teamed with Cal Poly Pomona graduate student Erica Hummel to publish their CURE study findings in the Journal of Computational Science Education. 

• XSEDE Helps Pitt Team Design Material to Capture and Turn CO2 into Useful Products

  May 6, 2019 3:45 pm0 views

  A new material may be able to capture carbon dioxide and turn it into a commercially useful substance, according to a team at the University of Pittsburgh. Using the XSEDE resource Bridges at the Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center, they simulated two "metal oxide framework" materials that simulated removal of carbon dioxide from exhaust gas. Better, the material also converted it into formic acid, which can be used to make products like methanol fuel. If the material works as well in the lab and factory as it does in the computer, it could fundamentally alter the economics of limiting human CO2 release and avoiding climate change.

• National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Stipend Awards 2020 - Request for Proposals

  May 6, 2019 3:30 pm0 views

  Internal Limited-Submission Deadline: Friday, August 23, 2019 by 5:00 p.m.

  Applications are invited for the National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Stipend Program for Summer 2020. Successful applicants typically receive an outright award of $6,000 to support two continuous months of research and writing. Recipients must work full-time on their projects for these two months, and may hold other research grants supporting the same project during this time. (NEH Summer Stipends do not require cost sharing and do not include indirect costs.)

• REDCap will soon be available to investigators on campus

  May 6, 2019 3:30 pm0 views

  Launch date: May 15, 2019

  Research Electronic Data Capture, or REDCap, is a secure web application for building and managing surveys and databases for research studies. Developed by Vanderbilt University in 2004, REDCap is currently used by over 805,000 users in 3,000 institutions throughout 127 countries.

• Can You Imagine: Shaping the future of finance with HPC

  May 6, 2019 3:15 pm0 views

  NCSA Faculty Fellow and Assistant Professor at the Gies College of Business at the University of Illinois, Mao Ye’s research lies at the intersection of big data, high-performance computing and the economics, and finance realm. Using computing resources, Ye tackles large amounts of data currently being collected by companies and finance institutions. “The high-performance computing is more like a tool,” he said, “because we are basically doing big data research.”

• Illinois researcher uses XSEDE to contribute to black hole image

  May 3, 2019 3:45 pm0 views

  Thanks in part to resources allocated through the Extreme Science and Engineering Discovery Environment (XSEDE) and the Blue Waters supercomputer at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA), a massive research collaboration was able to confirm a picture of a black hole for the first time ever this month.

• Paris-Oxford Research Fellowship

  May 2, 2019 11:45 am0 views

  Applications are open currently for a fellowship that will offer the successful doctoral student the opportunity to undertake research over a period of three years at two of the most prestigious institutions in Europe: Sorbonne University in Paris and the University of Oxford. Applicants should have a background in one or more of the following four disciplines: digital humanities, history of science, mathematics, or computer science. They should demonstrate experience of historical study alongside evident ability in the field of digital humanities or data sciences.

• iSEE Congress 2019

  May 2, 2019 11:45 am0 views

  The iSEE Sustainability and Justice Conference will take place Sept 24-25, 2019 at the Illini Union rooms A, B, C. This event features a diverse group of researchers, educators, journalists and activists discussing cutting-edge issues surrounding sustainability and social justice, building bridges across different approaches, disciplines and geographies, and charting new directions to a sustainable, just future. Free attendance, but registration is required; instructors are invited to contact us to bring classes. Register here.

• Call for Proposals now open for the Women Advance IT Conference

  May 2, 2019 10:15 am4 views

  "Women Advance IT" is an IT leadership conference that will be held at the Nebraska Innovation Campus, 2021 Transformation Dr, Lincoln, NE 68508 on November 5-6, 2019. This two-day conference is open to the public. The final day of registration is October 29, 2019.This year's conference theme is, "Disruption." We want to hear about programs that encourage inclusiveness and continued education in improving diversity and inclusion, growing future leaders and adding more women in IT. This year's Emerging Tech track will focus on STEM, we encourage students to submit proposals on their research projects.  

• PEARC 19 Submission deadlines have been extended

  May 2, 2019 10:00 am1 views

  You are invited to prepare presentation proposals for the PEARC19 Conference that will be held in Chicago, July 28 - August 1, 2019. 

  Presentations may address any topic related to advanced research computing, but topics consistent with one or more of the following four technical tracks are of particular interest. Proposals may take several forms as indicated below. NOTE: Sections highlighted in blue reflect deadline extensions and other updates. See PEARC19 Call for Participation page for more information.

• New type of silicon promises cheaper solar technology

  Apr 24, 2019 2:45 pm0 views

  An international research team led by The Australian National University (ANU) has made a new type of silicon that better uses sunlight and promises to cut the cost of solar technology.

• Can you imagine: Helping Research Reach New Heights with AI

  Apr 23, 2019 1:30 pm0 views

  Whether it be with Graphics Processing Units (GPUs) like those in our Blue Waters supercomputer, or Field-programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs), Kindratenko’s research has focused on pushing the limits of computational research, allowing high-performance computing architectures to be optimized to tackle unique and intensive challenges with great efficiency.

• Blue Waters and XSEDE User Charles Gammie Contributes to M87 Black Hole Image

  Apr 22, 2019 2:45 pm0 views

  Thanks in part to the power of the Blue Waters supercomputer and the Extreme Science and Engineering Discovery Environment (XSEDE), both headquartered at NCSA and supported by the National Science Foundation, a massive research collaboration was able to capture a picture of a black hole for the first time ever.