Letter from AVP Matt Link, Research Technologies

Dear friends and colleagues,

It has been a remarkable year for UITS Research Technologies (RT), marked equally by enthusiastic celebration and by sober reflection in these extraordinary times. Our mission, as one of the IU Pervasive Technology Institute’s centers, is to provide systems, tools, and services that open new possibilities for intellectuals and innovators within and beyond the IU community. With specializations in consulting, storage, research software, data visualization, and training, RT has fostered collaborations across disciplines and campuses, some of which are highlighted in the following pages.

Last summer, RT teams geared up for IU’s Bicentennial. The Advanced Visualization Lab found creative ways to transport the university’s famous artifacts and experiences throughout the state on the “All for You” tour. This team also set up the breathtaking Crystal Wall—the largest curved, mobile CLED display in the world—in Wrubel Commons, where its unparalleled technical capabilities will enable scientific research and enhance the many lectures, presentations, and classes offered in that space.

In 2019, Big Red II was succeeded by Big Red 3, and in January of 2020, Big Red 200 was dedicated as part of IU’s Bicentennial event. More than 300 times faster than Big Red II, the new supercomputer will enable as-yet-unimaginable research. These resources will, undoubtedly, enhance the kinds of partnerships that are essential to solving our most pressing research challenges in Indiana, the United States, and the world.

In June, Jetstream, the National Science Foundation’s first cloud-computing environment, announced that Jetstream2 was funded through a new $10M grant. Jetstream has enjoyed a reputation for making high performance computing resources accessible to researchers with limited experience inthe field. Jetstream2 will continue along these lines, with increased support for data analysis, on-demand research, and artificial intelligence.

This spring, IU made the prudent decision to move essential operations online. The UITS team in general, and several RT areas specifically, have helped the university stay up and running—from enhancing work-from-home capabilities to making eLearning work for our sizable student body—during the pandemic crisis. Jetstream has made its considerable resources available to the global research community for COVID-19 research.

As an organization, we remain committed to improving our services through communication and innovation. I am very proud of our team’s creative activities in furthering research. I am pleased to share these examples of our work with you, and hope that we can continue to collaborate and support research across the university during these challenging times.

I look forward to the day that we can all be together again!

Matt Link
Associate Vice President
Research Technologies, Pervasive Technology Institute
University Information Technology Services