The Renaissance Computing Institute
The Renaissance Computing Institute (RENCI) at North Carolina State University will welcome the Triangle research community for a March 23 open house that will showcase RENCI technologies and collaborations with NC State researchers.
The open house will be held noon to 3 p.m. in Suite 1500 of the Partners I Building on NC State’s Centennial Campus. Remarks by NC State Chancellor James Oblinger, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Chancellor James Moeser and RENCI Director Dan Reed will begin at 1 p.m.
One of the highlights of the facility is a 14-by-8-foot visualization wall, featuring visualizations created by RENCI, its partners, and NC State faculty, staff and students. Also on display will be state-of-the art video collaboration and editing facilities. Refreshments and musical entertainment will be provided.
Sample visualizations will include work created by NC State’s Dr. John Blondin, professor of physics, and Dr. Christopher Healey, associate professor of computer science. The event also will offer a sampling of RENCI’s collaborations with its state and national partners. Included will be weather models that combine atmospheric, hydrological and storm surge data and high-resolution animations of the Milky Way.
In addition, NC State’s Institute for Transportation Research and Education will demonstrate a traffic simulation of the use of roundabouts as part of the Hillsborough Street traffic flow improvement effort.
“This facility is a key part of our efforts to support successful research and the discovery process with high-end visualization techniques and high-performance computing methods,†said Dr. John Gilligan, NC State vice chancellor of research and graduate studies.
Founded in 2004 as a major collaboration of NC State, Duke University, UNC-Chapel Hill and the state of North Carolina, RENCI brings together researchers from all disciplines to address the state’s most challenging problems. By applying technological expertise and world-class computing, networking, visualization and data resources to these issues, RENCI creates a collaborative problem-solving environment that will spur economic growth and lead to the next generation of transformative discoveries.
Public health issues are among those addressed by RENCI. The institute has partnered with the Triangle biomedical research community to create software, Web portals and wireless devices that impact public health and assist researchers studying genetic causes of disease.
With the opening of RENCI at NC State in January, faculty and staff on the NC State campus now have access to RENCI resources, staff and collaborators and have the opportunity to contribute to these ongoing research projects. Members of the NC State community also will take the lead on new multidisciplinary research efforts that utilize RENCI’s visualization, computing and data resources and leverage the campus’ expertise in agriculture, environmental sciences, physics, engineering, computer science and other fields.
“We are creating a statewide virtual organization that leverages the expertise of our three founding universities as well as campuses across North Carolina,†Reed said. “The creation of RENCI at NC State is an important milestone because it will help us develop collaborations with faculty at one of North Carolina’s most important research universities. We look forward to some exciting projects that benefit RENCI, NC State, and the state of North Carolina.â€
If interested in attending, please contact Carol Allen at 919/515-2858 or allen@cs.ncsu.edu. For directions, please see www.renci.org/about/ncsu.php.
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