ORU Computer Scientist Awarded $400,000 NSF Grant

Tulsa, OK - The National Science Foundation (NSF) has awarded Oral Roberts University (ORU) Professor of Computer Science Dr. Stephen Wheat a $399,382 Advanced Cyber-Infrastructure Grant. The grant will allow for the deployment of a GPU-based server partition called Eli, and integrate it with Titan, ORU's 7,000+ core supercomputer. Eli will address the GPU and storage needs of computing for research, research training, and education.

Dr. Wheat, who is the director of the ORU Research Computing and Analytics (ORCA) facility, has been instrumental in bringing cutting edge technology and expertise to the department.

"We are so blessed to have someone like Dr. Wheat at ORU," said Dr. Andrew Lang, Chair of ORU's Computing & Mathematics Department. "Our students couldn't find a better mentor and role model."

Eli's GPU nodes have potential to address a local and regional near void of GPU capacity for traditional HPC codes as well as emerging Data Science (AI/ML) codes. With ORU's Data Science degree concentrations, nearly half of new ORU research efforts are Data Science related. While serving ORCA's current users, Eli's augmentation of Titan provides new researchers additional motivation to embrace HPC/AI methods. The ORCA management team actively promotes HPC/AI to nascent researchers and provides opportunities for substantial undergraduate research experiences. Research activities will be conducted in collaboration with research colleagues from ORU, the University of Tulsa, the University of Science and Arts of Oklahoma, and East Central University of Oklahoma.

"Eli's complementary GPU-based compute capacity will enable undergraduate research opportunities for ORU students to learn and experience the use of state-of-the-art technology," said Dr. Wheat. "Our proposal to the NSF explained our science driver needs; I look forward to the results of the faculty and student research efforts as they are now able to pursue those science drivers in earnest."

This project synergizes with ORU's NSF CC*-funded 100GbE connectivity to the OneOklahoma Friction Free Network (OFFN), a science DMZ consisting of 19 different Oklahoma academic institutions.

Contact Information:
Andrew Lang, Chair
Computing & Mathematics Department
7777 S. Lewis Ave.
Oral Roberts University
74171

Oral Roberts University's Computing & Mathematics Department Offers Bachelor of Science and Master of Science Degrees in Computer Science, Computer Information Technology, Data Science, Applied Science, and Mathematics. ORU graduates are currently employed in industry as software engineers, program analysts, database engineers, and data science experts.

This release was published on openPR.