Jefferson Lab Open House: The public is invited to tour the Jefferson Lab at the Science is Cool!Open House on Saturday, April 26, 2003. This popular event is an opportunity for visitors to grasp the scope of the nuclear physics research program and technology developments underway at the Lab. The accelerator, experimental halls, FEL, and several other major areas of the facility will be open for tours. Out-of-town visitors can reserve overnight accommodations at the SURA Residence Facility. JLab contact: Linda Ware.
FY04 funding for DOE Office of Science: In SURA's written testimony for FY2004 funding for the Department of Energy Office of Science programs, SURA President Jerry Draayer urged the appropriations subcommittee to consider increased funding to at least $3.6 billion, $300 million over the President's budget request. This number is consistent with the number being supported by the Energy Sciences Coalition and the American Association of Universities. Draayer cited the need for adequate support for the priorities of the Nuclear Science Advisory Committee (NSAC) in its 2002 Long Range Plan, which include increased operations funding for its unique research facilities, including the Jefferson Lab and for new facilities for advanced nuclear physics research, such as the 12 GeV upgrade at Jefferson Lab.
FY03 appropriations for Jefferson Lab: The final conference report language in House Report 108-010 with regards to the FY03 funding for Jefferson Lab indicates that the Nuclear Physics program budget increases $29.0 million, or 8.3%, from $350.6 million in FY02 to $379.6 million for FY03. The report language states: "The conferees encourage the Department to use these additional funds to enhance operation of the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) at the Brookhaven National Laboratory and the Continuous Electron Beam Accelerator Facility at the Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility, and to continue research and development and preconceptual design in support of the Rare Isotope Accelerator." Source: The American Institute of Physics Bulletin of Science Policy News, Number 40: March 27, 2003.
SURA/JLab Fellowship Program: The SURA/JLab Fellowship evaluation committee concluded its review of fourteen proposals for eight SURA/Jefferson Lab fellowships. SURA has awarded fellowships to eight graduate students who will be involved in the program for advanced training related to the theory and experimental research programs of Jefferson Lab. SURA contact: Hugh Loweth.
* Tigran Abrahamyan, Florida International University
* Hovhannes Grigoryan, Louisiana State University
* Peter Monaghan, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
* Yuriy Mischenko, North Carolina State University
* David Hayes, Old Dominion University
* Clarisse Tur, University of South Carolina
* Sarah Phillips, The College of William and Mary
* Bryan Moffit, The College of William and Mary
Virginia Life Achievement: Former Jefferson Lab science director, J. Dirk Walecka, received Virginia's Life Achievement in Science award for 2003. In his announcement of this year's outstanding scientists and industrialists, Virginia Governor Mark Warner described Walecka as "one of the world's leaders in nuclear theory." Walecka was a professor of physics at Stanford University before he joined the Continuous Electron Beam Accelerator Facility (CEBAF), now Jefferson Lab, as its scientific director from 1986-1992. Walecka held a Governor's Distinguished CEBAF Professorship at the College of William and Mary.
Information Technology
IT Committee meeting: The next meeting of the full SURA IT Committee will be held in conjunction with the Spring SURA Board of Trustees meeting on Tuesday, April 29 at the Wyndham Washington DC. Featured speaker at this Committee meeting will be Mike Roberts, nationally recognized policy consultant in the field of Internet technology. Mr. Roberts will provide an update to the Committee on current developments regarding several national optical networking initiatives that relate to SURA's current discussions with AT&T. SURA contact: Gary Crane.
AT&T partnership/networking infrastructure: Work continues with AT&T on refining a cooperative agreement between AT&T, SURA and the national research networking community that includes no cost leases of dark fiber and specially priced point-to-point wavelength services in support of regional and national advanced networking initiatives. SURA President Jerry Draayer participated in a panel discussion at the Internet2 Member Meeting this month in Arlington, Virginia, to discuss SURA's progress in discussions with AT&T. SURA contact: Gary Crane.
SGA eCorridors: Director of IT Initiatives Gary Crane is SURA's representative on the Southern eCorridors Project Advisory Committee which includes appointees from each of the SGA (Southern Governors' Association) states. The Committee is beginning discussions to develop a coordinated vision and strategy in support of the Southern eCorridors Project, a Southern States High Performance Network Grid that will enable the South to have "the capability, at a reasonable cost, to produce and access high volume information and services in the networked world." SURA contact: Gary Crane.
SURA Optical Networking Cookbook: The SURA Optical Networking Cookbook will be presented in a poster session at the upcoming Southeast Regional conference of EDUCAUSE. The planning team has also defined a set of guidelines to accept additional case study content contributions in response to numerous requests from the research and educational networking community. These guidelines will be available soon on the SURA Web site. SURA contact: Gary Crane.
NSF Middleware Initiative: The NMI Integration Testbed was highlighted at the Internet2 Member Meeting this month in Arlington, Virginia on April 9-11. The first workshop to disseminate Testbed results, Experiences in Middleware Deployment, was held as a full day pre-conference on April 8. Over fifty professionals, including directors, chief information officers, and technical implementers representing industry and the research and education community participated in this session. Attendees had the opportunity to learn directly from the NMI Testbed sites as they presented their experiences deploying and evaluating middleware at their institutions. SURA IT Program Coordinator Mary Fran Yafchak, SURA's NMI Testbed Manager, participated in a panel presentation of the NMI Management team in Thursday's program agenda. See information on the NSF NMI Middleware Initiative. SURA contact: Mary Fran Yafchak.
ViDe (Video Development Initiative): The 5th annual SURA/ViDe Digital Video Workshop was held March 24-26 in Atlanta, Georgia with more than 150 attendees. Sixty-five representatives from 24 SURA institutions joined representatives from 28 non-SURA institutions, associations, and companies in a full program that featured dozens of speakers with experience in digital video development and deployment. The keynote address was delivered by Gordon Castle, Senior Vice President, CNN Technology. The integration of digital video within and between campuses for conferencing, collaboration and distance learning is becoming more prevalent as evidenced by the range of university program participants - from the Auburn University's College of Veterinary Medicine to the University of Tennessee's College of Law. SURA contact: Sue Fratkin.
Coastal Research
SCOOP: SURA has submitted its proposal for the initial phase (FY03) of SCOOP (~$1 million from Department of Defense, Office of Naval Research) to begin the integration process to enable an information technology infrastructure, including distributed computational and data management grids, and to facilitate the assimilation of real-time coastal data into community models throughout the region. While initially limited to five data hubs and three model hubs, the SURA Coastal Ocean Observing Program will eventually include hubs spanning the entire East Coast and Gulf of Mexico. SURA contact: Don Wright.
Tech Transfer and Commercialization and Other SURA Projects
Optical Fiber Sensor Workshop: SURA is sponsoring the Innovative Optical Fiber Sensor Workshop, May 20-21, 2003, at the campus of Christopher Newport University in Newport News, Virginia. This workshop, the joint effort of Christopher Newport, Old Dominion, and NASA, will be the forum for discussions about new developments in optical fiber sensors and the opportunity for researchers from industry and universities to use the NASA Langley Research Center's Optical Fiber Draw Tower and related facilities. Principal investigator: Martin Buoncristiani, Christopher Newport University; SURA contact: Matt Thomas.
2003 SURA/ORNL Summer Cooperative Program in Materials Science: Six SURA university faculty members are among the awardees of support from SURA that will provide stipends for their graduate students to conduct research in the Summer Cooperative Program in Materials Sciences at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory this summer. SURA Coordinator Thomas Hutchinson, University of Virginia, led the review of proposals submitted on research topics that would draw on the unique facilities, equipment and expertise at ORNL. SURA contact: Hugh Loweth. The faculty members receiving support for their graduate students include:
* Donglu Shi, University of Cincinnati
* Hans-Joachim Kleebe, Colorado School of Mines
* G.C. Cargill, Lehigh University
* J.S. Faulkner, Florida Atlantic University
* Theodora Leventouri, Florida Atlantic University
* R.J. Narayan, Georgia Institute of Technology
* Jag Kasichainula, North Carolina State University
* Srikanth Hariharan, University of South Florida
* Peter Liaw, The University of Tennessee
Executive, Management, Administrative
SURA presidency: Board chair Donald Lehman has announced that SURA is extending the employment agreement of President Jerry Draayer through December 31, 2007. Draayer, who was appointed by the SURA Board in November 1998 to assume the SURA presidency, is the Daniels Professor of Physics and Astronomy and Computer Science, at Louisiana State University. In addition to his continuing academic work, he has served as the Associate Commissioner for R&D for the Louisiana Board of Regents. Draayer is a Fellow of the American Physical Society.
Board of Trustees meeting and business: The Board of Trustees will hold its Spring 2003 meeting on Tuesday and Wednesday, April 29 and 30, 2003, at the Wyndham Washington, DC. SURA welcomes two new trustees to the Board: University of Kentucky's VP for Research Wendy Baldwin and University of South Florida's VP for Research Ian Phillips. SURA contact: Elizabeth Lawson.
Extended Programmatic Standing Committees: SURA member presidents are in process of appointing institutional representatives to SURA's extended programmatic standing committees, Jefferson Lab, Coastal Research, Development, and Information Technology Committees. The extension of these committees provides a venue for focused participation from SURA member universities to more effectively contribute to and strengthen the scientific and technical capabilities of the region and to ultimately enhance the research capacity of the South through collaborative initiatives and partnerships. SURA contact: Elizabeth Lawson.
Development Committee (formerly the New & Ongoing Projects Committee): This committee provides a venue for chief research officers or equivalent individuals who oversee university research activities to discuss, plan and launch initiatives requiring multi-institutional participation. In addition to promoting and advocating SURA projects, this group will review and consider other high quality initiatives that draw on the scientific and technical strengths of our region in a unified manner. The restructuring of this committee was the recommendation of a group of SURA member chief research officers to engage key research individuals, who may or may not be on the SURA Board, in the broad programmatic goals of SURA.
Jefferson Lab Committee: This committee oversees and promotes the scientific mission of the Jefferson Lab, solicits the input of the research community in SURA's management and operation of the Lab, builds an effective relations program to support the Lab and its scientific programs, promotes leadership from the user community, and develops and advocates an educational outreach program that provides students access to the scientific talent of the Lab and its user community. Physics department chairs or leaders of physical sciences faculty are prime candidates for this extended committee.
Coastal Research Committee: This committee monitors, oversees, and evaluates the progress and outcome of SURA-supported coastal research projects and activities, the focus being the SURA Coastal Ocean Observing Program (SCOOP) for which SURA has received FY03 start-up funding from the Office of Naval Research. Membership of this extended committee could include individuals involved in coastal and marine sciences research.
Information Technology Committee: This extended committee, operational since 2000, seeks and encourages new collaborative IT projects of benefit to SURA member institutions, monitors the progress of the approved SURA IT program, and reviews plans for future SURA programs. Over the past year, the extended IT Committee has been engaged with SURA in its evaluation of the regional IT infrastructure and ways to improve the quality of network connectivity at more economical costs to our members. Chief information officers or other individuals involved in the science and research of the information technology field are members of this extended committee.
