ACADEMIA

Space is still available for those wishing to attend HUBbub2010, a workshop for current and potential users of the HUBzero Platform for Scientific Computing. The workshop will unveil an open source, “hub in a box” release of HUBzero’s core software. HUBzero is a platform for creating powerful Web sites supporting research, education and collaboration in science, engineering and other fields.

The two-day workshop will take place April 13-14 at the IUPUI University Place Conference Center, 850 West Michigan St., Indianapolis, Ind.  For more information and to register, go to:  http://hubzero.org/hubbub2010. Registrations will be accepted until the available space is filled. Space is limited.

The workshop will include three hands-on breakout sessions, one aimed at new users interested in starting a hub with the open source release, as well as current users who want to learn more about the hub technology. The other two breakout sessions will focus on research software developers and on Web developers working with hubs.

Among the speakers: Jennifer Schopf of the National Science Foundation’s Office of Cyberinfrastructure and John Smith, co-author of the book “Digital Habitats: Stewarding Technology for Communities.” Sessions also will include a panel discussion by representatives from existing hubs for nanotechnology research and education, earthquake engineering, pharmaceutical product development, and cancer care engineering.

The registration fee includes all sessions, an opening reception the evening of April 12, continental breakfast and lunch April 13 and 14, and dinner on April 13.

Developed at Purdue University, HUBzero is the YouTube of simulation tools—sort of a Swiss Army Knife for deploying and accessing computational research codes, and visualizing and analyzing results, all through a familiar Web browser interface. HUBzero also facilitates connecting your tools to supercomputing clusters and other grid resources while largely avoiding complexities of grid computing. Built-in social networking features akin to Facebook create communities of researchers and educators in science, engineering, medicine, almost any field or subject matter and facilitate online collaborations.

The HUBzero platform powers nanoHUB.org and 20 other sites already, delivering hundreds of research tools and seminars to nearly a half million users each year. HUBzero is supported by a consortium of universities including Purdue, Indiana, Clemson and Wisconsin.

Writer: Greg Kline, science and technology writer, Information Technology at Purdue (ITaP), 765-494-8167 (office), 765-426-8545 (mobile), gkline@purdue.edu