University Partnerships

Historically, universities have had a close relationship with the Department of Energy’s Defense Programs national laboratories. In fact, Los Alamos and Lawrence Livermore have been operated for the Department of Energy by the University of California for many years. The mission of the Defense Programs laboratories is focused on Science-Based Stockpile Stewardship, and ASC and the universities share a common and critical interest in making that vision a reality. The success of ASC depends on the ability to show that simulations can credibly be used to replace nuclear testing as a means of ensuring stockpile confidence. Universities recognize the challenge in developing new kinds of simulation tools across a number of related disciplines to accomplish this mission.

About ASC and Universities

Collaborations with universities involve training, recruiting, and working with top researchers in key disciplines required by stockpile stewardship. These partnerships help establish and validate large-scale, multidisciplinary research in modeling and simulation. Collaborating universities are integrated into program activities that challenge vision of what is possible in science-based modeling and simulation. Students gain unique experience using state-of-the-art equipment and the resources of three national laboratories. After graduation, the opportunity may exist to join the laboratory teams providing cutting-edge technologies to ensure the nation’s security. Students and faculty are invited to explore the possiblities with ASC.

Alliances

Both of the ASC Academic Strategic Alliance Program (ASAP) and the Predictive Science Academic Alliance Program (PSAAP) engage the U.S. academic community in making significant advances in predictive modeling and simulation technologies. Research conducted through these partnerships contributes to the knowledge base required to demonstrate the capabilities of predictive modeling and simulation across a broad spectrum of science and engineering applications using some of the most powerful computers in the world. Both the ASAP and PSAAP encourage collaboration between the national laboratories and universities in the advancement of multi-disciplinary predictive modeling and simulation technologies, and educating and recruiting individuals with skills critical to the ASC Program.

Both ASAP and PSAAP involve demonstrating the power of simulation to build models of large-scale complex multi-physics systems requiring ASC-class computers. The difference is that PSAAP will focus more strongly on integrating the modeling with the predictive science disciplines of verification and validation (V&V was also an increasing focus of the later stage of the ASAP program) and uncertainty quantification. The goal is both to further these disciplines and more accurately identify and bound the uncertainty of the predictions made by the simulations.

ASC Academic Strategic Alliance Program (1997–2010)

ASC Predictive Science Academic Alliance Program (2008–2013)

* Ending in ASAP and continuing in PSAAP starting 2008.

Points of Contact

Office of Advanced Simulation and Computing, NA-121.2 Thuc Hoang

Lawrence Livermore Richard W. (Dick) Watson

Sandia Paul Yarrington

Los Alamos Nelson M. (Nels) Hoffman

Graduate Fellowships

Recognizing the scarcity of U.S. citizens enrolling for advanced degrees in fields crucial to the success of ASC, two complementary Fellowship programs, both administered by the Krell Institute, are supported.

Institutes

The ASC Program supports an Institute at each of the three Defense Program laboratories, to advance basic and applied research initiatives in computational sciences in support of the ASC Program.

These ASC Institutes attract university experts to work with laboratory staff in research initiatives, and serve as focal points for laboratory-university interactions in support of the ASC Program.

Lab-specific Institute information is available at the following links: