Welcome

Message from Warren Mori, IDRE Director:

I am honored to be appointed Director of the UCLA Institute for Digital Research and Education.

Computational science and engineering is a multidisciplinary field intersecting the domain sciences, engineering, mathematics and computer science. It is a critical path to understanding dynamic processes, exemplified by the grand scientific and social challenges of the 21st century; climate change, fundamental biological processes and interactions, nanoscience and technology, sustainable energy sources, information systems and new media.

At UCLA we have many strong world class individual research group efforts in scientific computing, in medical imaging, and in data analysis of laboratory experiments. These efforts involve researchers across the professional schools and the College. However, few individuals and groups possess all of the requisite collection of skills to function optimally in computational science. Success requires engaged interdisciplinary teams working together in a focused environment supported by a robust technical infrastructure.

The Institute for Digital Research and Education will be a convergence point for expertise, perspectives and methodologies in mathematics, engineering, computer science, statistics and domain sciences in a unified approach to computation and visualization. It will take advantage of the existing body of knowledge and expertise at UCLA and will support, advance and guide a campus wide program to make UCLA a world leader in high performance computing and visualization research and education.

Specifically, IDRE will:

• Act as a catalyst for faculty across departments and schools to form teams focused on solving scientific problems of national significance
• Establish innovative new models that will provide the unique technical foundation required for computational science and engineering research by building bridges across research disciplines
• Provide a strong intellectual environment for faculty, researchers, and students though international workshops, seminar series, and conferences
• Provide a facility for code sharing, development, and maintenance
• Build up computational resources through networked local clusters and central computing facilities as well as better access to national high-end computational platforms
• Develop and coordinate curriculum across UCLA in the areas of computation, simulation

Professor Warren Mori
Director, Institute for Digital Research and Education