This year, 2014, marks the 25th anniversary of OSC’s Summer Institute program for high school students. Since the Ohio Supercomputer Center grew from academic roots, it was only natural for the center’s founders to develop a program through which they could share with students the fascinating and empowering computational resources they’d assembled. It also was logical that they would create a pipeline to help educate and inspire future scientists and engineers.
In 1989, 20 students attended the first Summer Institute, which was known as a Governor's Summer Institute – one of several summer programs on various topics offered around the state for a few years. The founding goals of OSC's summer program were:
- To explore high-end workstations and supercomputers
- To show how supercomputers impact science, industry and art
- To show the importance of computer-generated visualization
- To provide each student with access to the CRAY Supercomputer
- To provide each student with a video tape showing his or her activities
I’ve had the great privilege of being involved with the SI program in a variety of roles over the majority of that quarter-century, starting with being a student participant in the third year of the program. I’d like to think that I exemplify many of the outcomes that the original OSC staff had in mind for SI students, and I’m but one of 375 alumni from over the years, who have come from all corners of Ohio, big and small, rural and urban.
One of the most satisfying aspects of SI I’ve observed over the years is the increased participation by girls in the program. In 1991, only 2 of the 18 participants were female. However, that ratio has increased to 7 out of 16 this year, and I can assure you that all the applicants, male and female, were evaluated equally, without regard to gender. One of the contributing factors, I believe, has been the success of OSC’s Young Women’s Summer Institute for middle school girls, which will celebrate its 15th anniversary next year.
Just as the demographics of the participants have evolved over the years, so have the projects and hardware they’ve worked on. Back in 1991, I simulated crystal growth in a supersaturated solution, programming in C on the Cray Y-MP supercomputer. Due to the hardware and time limitations of the time, we were allowed to output only 60 low-res images for a basic animation. By comparison, this year one group used their laptops, which each are far more powerful than the Cray Y-MP, to analyze thousands of high-res satellite images for the presence of comets.
From chemistry to astronomy and automotive engineering to virology, SI students have been involved in projects covering a wide variety of scientific fields. Based upon a recent sampling of alumni, this sort of early exposure has translated to the majority of participants pursuing college degrees in fields as diverse as applied mathematics and molecular biology. These academic pursuits have taken place at leading institutions from coast to coast, MIT to CalTech and many campuses in between, including, of course, The Ohio State University.
The professional careers of SI alumni have led them to interesting positions, including some at the biggest technology corporations, including Apple, Google and Hewlett Packard. And of course some of us haven’t strayed very far at all, with several landing either student or full-time employment here at OSC over the years. SI alumni who have worked here at OSC represent just a few of the more than 60 individuals who have actively supported the SI program each summer, guiding project groups, organizing food and transportation, coaching students on specific skills, and much, much more. The contributions of so many individuals have been a key to the success of the program over 25 years. SI also has benefitted over the years from the support of a dozen or so corporate sponsors.
Looking forward, OSC staff are working to expand and enhance the Summer Institute program by looking for new sources and different kinds of support. A better, larger program will not only improve the experience of the individual student participants, but it also will contribute more effectively to a broader network of STEM workers across the state. By nurturing the interest and increasing the diversity of students and workers in the STEM fields, OSC’s SI and YWSI programs will help to increase Ohio’s reputation as a tech-savvy location for innovative businesses and to make the Buckeye State an even more popular destination for future generations of scientists and engineers.
