Photos from the STaR Symposium 2007
For more information, contact Ginny Painter.

STaR Enterprise takes off in state
Event focuses on academic research

This article appeared in the September 18, 2007, edition of the Times West Virginian (Fairmont).


By Jessica Legge

MORGANTOWN — The presidents of West Virginia University, Marshall University and the University of Louisville came together Monday to discuss academic research during the annual West Virginia Science, Technology and Research Symposium.

The 2007 event, titled “Defining our Future: The STaR Enterprise in West Virginia,” started Monday morning and continues today at the Waterfront Place Hotel in Morgantown. The event features guest speakers, panel discussions, scientific sessions on various topics, and a poster competition for college and university students.

Dr. Paul Hill, vice chancellor for science and research at the West Virginia Higher Education Policy Commission, said research is the foundation for the country’s economic future. The people at the STaR Symposium and the programs they represent are a $200 million enterprise in West Virginia, he said.

Michael Garrison of WVU, Stephen Kopp of Marshall, and special guest panelist Dr. James Ramsey of Louisville made up the keynote panel Monday on “Collaborative and Competitive Research.” These individuals talked about their school’s research goals and strategies.

Jay Cole, education policy advisor to Gov. Joe Manchin, served as moderator. Cole said every example of successful regional high-tech development over the last 50 years has involved the leadership of a research university.

The University of Louisville started placing an emphasis on funded research around 1997 and 1998, President Ramsey said. At this time, the school adopted a plan called “Challenge for Excellence” that focused on building research and becoming a “premier, nationally recognized, metropolitan research university.”

He said the University of Louisville identified potential growth areas in two economic clusters: health care and life sciences, and logistics and distribution management. In the area of health care, the institution has done a lot of cancer research, including work with cervical cancer and the vaccine.

Kentucky’s “Bucks for Brains” state campaign has providing vital funding for the University of Louisville’s research programs and to bring in faculty and researchers, Ramsey said. The school has had to look for other funding sources beyond the state to build its physical infrastructure. The university constructed four research facilities and is working on the development of a downtown research park.

President Kopp of Marshall University said there are many parallels between Kentucky and West Virginia’s research efforts. Although West Virginia may be behind, it is working to close the gap, he said.

Marshall has researchers who are accomplished, but in the past, the university’s research was not focused. Now, Marshall University is evolving as a research university and continues to progress, he said. The school is working on a range of projects, from purely theoretical research to applied research.

Kopp said he knew it would be a challenge to fund research programs and cover faculty, equipment and other needs without being affected by state budget cuts.

Marshall created a funding model that is self-sustaining and does not require base
funding from the state.

Kopp stressed that even if the state does an exceptional job with research and educating school children about career opportunities, it also needs to ensure that jobs are available in these fields.

The role of universities and state government in research and education is changing, WVU President Garrison said. In the nation, people are seeing a commitment to innovation and enhancing the public research venture.

“We must ask ourselves what part West Virginia will play in the next wave of creativity,” he said. “We’ve grown our research enterprise at WVU. We will be diligent in staying focused on our priorities.”

Garrison said WVU is committed to becoming a leading energy research facility and strives to complement the economic development in the state. Some of the university’s research priorities include biometrics and nanotechnology, and WVU has a vibrant Health Sciences Center.

With the success of students and the hard work of faculty, WVU is at a “crossroads” and is ready for more growth, Garrison said. He thanked Gov. Manchin and the legislators for their focus on research funding.

“We’re very encouraged by this symposium,” Garrison said.

Global Grid Exchange®
Higher-Ed Student Project Competition Announced
Fall 2007


The West Virginia High Tech Consortium Foundation’s Global Grid Exchange® program is proud to announce the Fall 2007 Higher-Ed Student Project Competition. This is a statewide competition that encourages undergraduate and graduate level college students to embrace one of the newest trends in the computing industry, grid computing. This year, the West Virginia High Technology Consortium Foundation is the sponsor.

The Global Grid Exchange program aggregates the computational capacity of thousands of Internet-connected computers to deliver advanced supercomputing capacity on demand. Computational grids are being used by researchers and businesses to solve computationally intense problems in domains such as Life Science, Energy, Semiconductors, Defense and Finance, to name but a few. Past competition entries have covered a broad range of fields - from decryption to wireless communications. By harnessing the power of thousands of computers to work in parallel, grids allow problems to be solved in days that would otherwise take decades.

Students (or student teams) who wish to participate in this competition are challenged to write grid-based computer applications that leverage the power of the Global Grid Exchange program. Winning applications will either perform a well-defined “deep” calculation or provide a “user capability;” in either case, relying on computations that are not possible (in reasonable time) without the power afforded by a computational grid.

In the spirit of grid computing, in which computational work is performed remotely, all aspects of the competition will be conducted online. Applicants will submit their grid application along with instructions for its execution plus any datasets required for a verification test. Source code for the application must also be submitted; the code will be judged for its engineering quality and informative documentation.

Whereas a traditional science fair would require a presentation poster to accompany a project submission, this competition requires students to adopt the modern business practice of making presentations via telephone conference calling accompanied by electronic media (e.g., a PowerPoint or Keynote presentation or interactive web site). The presentation must describe the application, why it requires grid-scale computation, difficulties encountered during its development, known limitations and suggested future enhancements or research direction.

One first place prize of $1,000 and one second place prize of $500 will be given in this competition.

Any undergraduate or graduate student attending a West Virginia higher-education institution interested in math, engineering, and/or computer science can participate. Those students who have Java programming experience will be at a slight advantage over those who do not.

Students interested in competing should submit an entry form and declare their official entrance in the competition no later than Monday, October 1, 2007. More information and entry forms can be obtained by emailing a request to bbunner@wvhtf.org. Completed entry forms can be emailed, faxed or mailed to Brent Bunner, WVHTC Foundation, 1000 Technology Drive, Suite 1000, Fairmont, WV 26554. Phone: (304) 333-6766. Fax: (304) 366-2699. Email: bbunner@wvhtf.org

NSF Announces East Asia and Pacific Summer Institutes for 2008

The National Science Foundation's East Asia and Pacific Summer Institutes (EAPSI) program offers U.S. graduate students in science and engineering a unique opportunity to study abroad for eight weeks with foreign researchers in Australia, China, Japan, Korea, New Zealand, Singapore or Taiwan.

In 2008, the EAPSI awards will include a stipend of $5,000, an allowance for international travel and support to attend a pre-departure orientation in Washington, D.C. Foreign co-sponsoring organizations will provide additional support to cover EAPSI students' living expenses abroad.

For more information, visit the EAPSI website at http://www.nsf.gov/eapsi or contact Dr. Andrew S. Backe at abacke@nsf.gov or (703) 292-4771.

RFP for National Science Foundation RII Released

The West Virginia Higher Education Policy Commission, Division of Science and Research, has released a request for pre-proposals for the FY2008 West Virginia Research Infrastructure Improvement (RII) Proposal to the National Science Foundation. Principal investigators for this program must be STEM (science, technology, engineering or math) faculty from West Virginia University or Marshall University, but faculty from other colleges and universities may be part of the research team for the pre-proposal.

To request a copy of the RFP, contact:

Jan R. Taylor, Ph.D.
Deputy Director/Senior Research Fellow
jtaylor@wvepscor.org
(304) 558-4128 x3