Contact: Phil Hearn
STARKVILLE, Miss.--Mississippi State University and the state's three other doctoral-granting institutions are sharing more than $6.7 million in external funding to help make them more nationally competitive in the computational sciences.
The National Science Foundation's Office of the Experimental Program to Stimulate Competitive Research awarded MSU a grant of $6,750,000 for a three-year period that started May 1.
The university is subcontracting more than $4.5 million of the EPSCoR grant to its fellow members of the Mississippi Research Consortium--including more than $1.5 million apiece to Jackson State University and the University of Southern Mississippi; a little more than $1 million to the University of Mississippi; and nearly $435,000 to the UM Medical Center.
"This funding from the NSF will make a tremendous difference in the ability of Mississippi State and the other universities to further develop excellence related to high-performance computing and the life sciences," said Colin Scanes, MSU's vice president for research and the project's principal investigator.
The MRC was founded in 1986 with a mission that includes developing a research infrastructure to support education and extend technology development in Mississippi, and to enhance economic development opportunities for the state.
"This (EPSCoR) project is a great example of how the research universities of the state of Mississippi are working together to build research capability and address important societal problems," said Alice M. Clark, vice chancellor for research and sponsored programs at the University of Mississippi.
The EPSCoR "Innovations Through Computational Sciences" project will seek to build on existing strengths in computational chemistry, while developing new research areas in computational biology and multi-scale biosystem simulation and modeling.
At least three of the universities will be involved in each of the three major thrust areas, including: computational biology--JSU, MSU and USM; computational chemistry--JSU, UM and USM; and multi-scale biosystem simulation and modeling--JSU, MSU and the UM Medical Center.
"The EPSCoR program has enhanced the research productivity of our faculty and students," said Felix A. Okojie, JSU's vice president for research and strategic initiatives. "This project is a value-added to our state."
Goals will include building on the high-performance computing infrastructure in Mississippi, which already ranks seventh in the nation in power, and recruiting and developing faculty strength at the four research universities.
"Over the last decade, EPSCoR has done a great deal to improve the competitiveness of our faculty," said Cecil Burge, research vice president at USM. "We anticipate the current award will enable us to continue this process, particularly with our younger faculty."
Project initiatives also will seek to develop K-12/undergraduate research programs in Mississippi to strengthen the pipeline of prospective graduate students--particularly women and African-Americans--in the science, technology, engineering and mathematics fields, with special emphasis on the computational sciences.
"Mississippi is on the cusp of being nationally competitive in the computational sciences related to life sciences and chemistry, due in part to the success of the existing computational chemistry cluster supported by EPSCoR," said Scanes. "A series of integrated and focused steps can help achieve national competitiveness."
To enhance collaboration and interaction among the four MRC members, a Mississippi Computational Sciences Network will be established to disseminate information among the research thrust areas.
A Mississippi Computational Biology Consortium also will be established to facilitate collaborations among life scientists and computer scientists within and across institutions, and to apply lessons learned to other disciplines at the research schools.
"This project will enhance Mississippi's national presence in the computational sciences and play a key role in raising the level of research in these areas of national importance," said co-PI Sandra Harpole, MSU's associate vice president for research.
For more information, contact Dr. Harpole at (662) 325-3570 or sharpole@research.msstate.edu.