NYSGrid announced today that The Graduate Center of the City University of New York (CUNY) has become the 21st institution to join NYSGrid, a collaboration among New York institutions to create an advanced technological infrastructure in the State. The Graduate Center, founded in 1961, is CUNY’s nationally top-ranked doctorate-granting institution, with 4,000 doctoral students pursuing studies across a broad spectrum of fields in the humanities, social sciences, and sciences.

The CUNY Graduate Center has been supporting computational clusters for faculty and faculty-sponsored research since 1999. In 2001, the center initiated a successful CUNY Grid project connecting clusters at the City College of New York, the College of Staten Island, and the Graduate Center. The Graduate Center’s computing resources have been used in research in numerous disciplines, including biochemistry, biology, chemistry, computer science, engineering, mathematics, and physics.

"At present, more than 50 doctoral faculty and 70 doctoral students make use of the CUNY Grid for computational research," noted Stephen Brier, vice president for information technology and external programs. "We believe it is vital to link our grid computing efforts to NYSGrid and, beyond that, to the Open Science Grid (OSG)." NYSGrid and OSG announced a partnership early in 2008 to expand grid capabilities and collaborations.

Florian Lengyel, assistant director for research computing, will serve on NYSGrid’s council, providing liaison between NYSGrid and CUNY. Under Lengyel’s guidance, more than 20 Ph.D. candidates have participated in The CUNY Graduate Center’s unique "Tech Fellows" program, in which Ph.D. candidates are appointed as apprentices in hands-on systems administration of clusters and grids. "We are very proud of the accomplishments of these students," said Lengyel. "This systems experience augments their research and increases students’ competitiveness in acquiring employment in companies."

"The Graduate Center of CUNY is uniquely qualified to serve as a gateway for CUNY to NYSGrid and OSG resources," said Christine Haile, chair of NYSGrid’s Steering Committee. "We expect this to be a dynamic collaboration that will contribute to New York State’s leadership in building cyber-ecosystem."

The technologies and expertise that comprise cyber-ecosystem are becoming increasingly important for researchers, educators, and librarians across the state. NYSGrid provides a focal point for information about New York’s cyber-ecosystem. NYSGrid was formed in 2006 when member institutes joined to facilitate information and technology exchange, to develop an advanced technological infrastructure across the state, and to provide access to computational and data resources on a statewide grid. In 2007, NYSGrid became an initiative under NYSERNet, New York’s advanced networking technology provider.

The Graduate Center of CUNY is a unique consortium with a core faculty of 125 Graduate Center appointments, supplemented by more than 1,600 additional faculty members drawn from throughout CUNY’s 11 senior colleges and New York City’s leading cultural and scientific institutions. The Graduate Center offers more than 30 doctoral programs and seven master’s programs and is housed in a landmark building at 365 Fifth Avenue in midtown Manhattan. In addition to Research Computing, the Graduate Center houses two additional cyberinfrastructure programs. The New Media Lab provides a high-end computer visualization facility to assist doctoral students’ creation of multimedia projects to augment their research and demonstrates new approaches and methods of merging digital media, scholarship, and learning. The Interactive Technology and Pedagogy doctoral certificate program encourages students to think creatively and critically about the uses of technology to improve teaching and learning.

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Source: NYSGrid