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| Friday, August 10, 2001 WRITERS: Phil Williams, 706/542-8501, phil@franklin.uga.edu Jeff Sherwood, 202/586-5806, jeff.sherwood@hq.doe.gov CONTACT: Henry Schaefer, 706/542-0364 UNIVERSITY OF GEORGIA CHEMISTRY PROFESSOR RECEIVES GRANT FROM THE U.S. DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY ATHENS, Ga. — Henry F. Schaefer, Graham Perdue Professor of Chemistry at the University of Georgia and director of the Center for Computational Quantum Chemistry, has been awarded a grant of $198,000 from the U. S. Department of Energy. The grant is part of the first round of funding in DOE’s Scientific Discovery through Advanced Computing (SciDAC) program. “This is an interesting program out of DOE for large-scale scientific computation. They are hopeful this program will grow rapidly over next few years, so we are happy to be in on the ground floor,” said Schaefer. “While this isn’t a lot of money for us at this point, the future could be very bright indeed.” The Center for Computational Quantum Chemistry seeks to develop theoretical and computational methods through mathematical models for describing and understanding the movement and function of electrons in molecules and to apply the theoretical methods to significant problems of broad chemical interest. Fifty-one projects will receive a total of $57 million this fiscal year to advance fundamental research in several areas related to the department's missions, including: climate modeling, fusion energy sciences, chemical sciences, nuclear astrophysics, high energy physics and high performance computing. Schaefer’s grant is in the area of chemical sciences. SciDAC is an integrated program that will help create a new generation of scientific simulation codes. The codes will take full advantage of the computing capabilities of terascale computers (computers capable of doing trillions of calculations per second) to address ever larger, more complex problems. The program also includes research on improved mathematical and computing systems software that will allow these codes to use modern parallel computers effectively and efficiently. Additionally, the program will develop software to enable geographically separated scientists to effectively work together as a team, to control scientific instruments remotely and to share data more readily. “This innovative program will help us to find new energy sources for the future, understand the effect of energy production on our environment and learn more about the fundamental nature of energy and matter,” said Secretary of Energy Spencer Abraham. “A major strength of many of the projects is a partnership between scientists at the Energy Department's national laboratories and universities.” Selected from more than 150 proposals, the SciDAC activities include 23 large projects that will each receive $500,000 to $4 million per year for three to five years, and 27 smaller projects, each with funding of up to $500,000 per year for three years. |