Undergraduate Research

Scalable Scientific Computing
The Cooperative Computing Lab invites outstanding undergraduates to apply for summer research positions in scalable scientific computing at the University of Notre Dame.

Our research group computer systems that allow many people to cooperate in the solution of problems that are too large for any single machine or person to attack. Students in this REU program will develop software and new techniques for managing computations that harness hundreds to thousands of machines at once. Students will have access to a 180TB Hadoop cluster, a 1200 core Condor pool, a 4000 core high performance computing cluster, and cloud resources via Amazon EC2 and Windows Azure. These tools will be used to attack problems in disciplines such as high energy physics, organic chemistry, biometrics, and bioinformatics.

We strongly encourage applications from women and minorities that are not well represented in computer science. We also encourage applications from students at regional colleges and universities. A summer research position is a great way to develop your skills and prepare for graduate school. This program will accept two to four applicants that will live and work along side about twenty other REU students working on different research programs in our department.

Applicants must be enrolled in a computer science degree program or a closely related field. Some skill in one of the existing areas below is helpful, but not required.

Summer 2012 Focus Areas

  • Scalable Programming Models. You know how to write a program that runs on one computer, but how do you write a program that harnesses thousands? Using conventional languages, it isn't easy at all. Help us to design and improve abstractions and languages for distributed computing that make it easy to run on a thousand cores without a heroic effort.
    Relevant Skills: C, Unix, sockets, scripting, compilers.

  • Big Data Storage and Analysis. Many fields of science and engineering are awash in enormous amounts of data collected from physical instruments and computational simulations. For the typical researcher, it is a significant challenge to reproduce a result that was generated even a year ago, or to correlate new discoveries with previously collected data. Help us to design large scale storage systems that efficiently capture massive amounts of data and enable high throughput data processing. Relevant Skills: Hadoop, Java, SQL, scripting, Linux.

  • Web Portals for Scientific Computing. Science of all kinds in increasingly done by accessing cloud resources through an easy-to-use web front end. Help to advance scientific discovery by applying web technologies to that make it easy to harness clouds and grids at the touch of a button. Contribute to our various science portals, including Biocompute and BXGrid.
    Relevant Skills: HTML, CSS, JS, PHP, Perl, SQL

    • Summer at Notre Dame

    Summer research students will be paid a stipend of $6000 for ten weeks during the summer term, 28 May 2013 - 2 August 2013. Students must register for a zero-credit (no fee) course, which gives access to campus resources such as housing, computing, libraries, and athletic facilites. The stipend should be used to pay for housing, meals, and other costs. Students may choose any housing on or off campus, but are welcome to take advantage of on campus housing in order to meet other students involved in REU programs.

    The Notre Dame campus is a wonderful place to live during the summer. The campus is full of students in summer courses and programs. The city of South Bend offers museums and cultural activities, outdoor concerts and festivals, and a variety of parks and natural areas along the St. Joseph River. Beyond the city, the South Shore Railway provides transportation to Lake Michigan and Indiana Dunes Park, and downtown Chicago, with easy access to museums, parks, and shopping.

    Students may bring a car to campus, but a car is not required. If you arrive by plane, train, or bus, we can arrange a pick up and drop off.

    Important Dates

  • 15 March 2013: Applications received by this date will be given first consideration.
  • 28 May 2013: First day of summer research term.
  • 2 August 2013: End of summer research term.

    • How to Apply

    Send an email with the title "REU Application" to dthain at nd dot edu, with the following attachments in PDF format:
  • Cover letter describing your interests and qualifications.
  • Current resume listing education, experience, and skills.
  • Letter of recommendation from your faculty advisor or the professor of a class in which you have done excellent work.

    • For More Information...

  • Prof. Douglas Thain - dthain at nd dot edu
  • Cooperative Computing Lab - http://www.cse.nd.edu/~ccl
  • University of Notre Dame - http://www.nd.edu