Date: Tue, 14 Jan 1997 19:58:35 GMT Server: NCSA/1.4.1 Content-type: text/html Last-modified: Fri, 01 Nov 1996 22:47:44 GMT Content-length: 5323
With the advent of inexpensive networked scientific workstations, a corresponding dramatic growth in the amount of inexpensive quality scientific software, and the development of increasingly more comprehensive and computationally tractable system models, Computational Science has emerged as no less than a new way to do science -- a natural merging of theory and experiment at the computational level. As a discipline, Computational Science is concerned with the computational aspects of modeling, simulating and analyzing the behavior of natural or man-made systems; the emphasis is on the use and development of computational techniques to better understand the behavior of systems. Consistent with this, a Computational Science Cluster at the College has been formed that may eventually involve faculty from a wide variety of departments in the School of Arts and Sciences, and from the Schools of Marine Science and Business. The potential to share computational resources and build intellectual cross-disciplinary affiliations is large, at both the faculty and graduate student level.
At the faculty level the Cluster is composed of affiliated faculty. Affiliated faculty normally demonstrate a history of using and developing computational methods in a scientific way to model, simulate and analyze the behavior of natural or man-made systems. In the absence of this history, the Cluster will provide the intellectual resources for interested faculty to develop a Computational Science expertise. The Cluster is administered by an acting Director and a Cluster Committee. The Director and all members of the Cluster Committee are affiliated faculty members. Together, they are working to expand the existing computational strengths (people, hardware, and software) at the College with an emphasis on the enhancement of advanced undergraduate-level and graduate-level interdisciplinary research and instruction.
There is not an undergraduate concentration or minor in Computational Science. However, each year Cluster-affiliated faculty will offer at least one upper-level, cross-listed course designed to illustrate the significant insight and unity that a Computational Science perspective provides when a variety of natural or man-made systems are studied at the computational level. Moreover, within the framework of their home departments, Cluster-affiliated faculty are encouraged to integrate advanced undergraduates into their research working groups and advise senior research projects with a significant Computational Science component.
There is not be an MS or PhD degree in Computational Science. However, if a Cluster-affiliated faculty member directs the research of a graduate student in a Cluster-affiliated MS-granting or PhD-granting department or school, then the citation "With a Specialization in Computational Science" will be appended to the MS or PhD degree, as appropriate. Beginning in the 97/98 academic year the Cluster will recruit graduate students, in part as an extension of the recruiting already done by Cluster-affiliated departments/schools with graduate programs, but also on its own. All graduate student admission will be into one of the Cluster-affiliated departments/schools. (A department or school is Cluster-affiliated if at least one of its tenured faculty is Cluster-affiliated and the department/school has agreed to award the "With a Specialization in Computational Science" citation, when appropriate.) Graduate students recruited by the Cluster will apply to Cluster-affiliated departments, with a Computational Science interest noted on the application. Each department will then act on these applications consistent with standard departmental admission policies.