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Four
iCORE Alberta researchers were awarded
close to $15 million in federal funding
from the Canada Foundation for Innovation
(CFI) recently to build infrastructure
for their research. The CFI decisions
are contingent on provincial funding.
Alberta's decisions are expected at the
end of February.
iCORE
recipients of CFI funding include:
1)
WestGrid
$12 million was awarded for the Western
Canada Research Grid, a partnership between
research universities (Alberta, British
Columbia, Calgary, Lethbridge, Simon Fraser),
TRIUMF (Canada's national laboratory for
particle and nuclear physics), the Banff
Centre (Canada's only post-secondary centre
for the arts), and NewMIC (an independent
laboratory focused on new media innovation
and entrepreneurship). The project provides
complementary computational resources
to research communities.
Principal
Applicant: iCORE Chair Dr Jonathan Schaeffer
Co-applicants:
Jonathan Borwein, Mathematics, SFU
Grenfell Patey, Chemistry, UBC
Brian Unger, Computer Science, U of C
Mike Vetterli, TRIUMF
Total
value of project: $34M
CFI contribution: $12M
There
are over 250 researchers involved in WestGrid
(view as Excel Spreadsheet)
2)
ELISA
$1.2 million was awarded for the Experimental
Lab for Internet Systems and Applications
to provide a geographically distributed,
state-of-the-art Internet testbed shared
by researchers at the University of Saskatchewan
and the University of Calgary. The funding
is primarily earmarked for specialized
network traffic analyzers for collecting
real-time measurements of Internet traffic
from wide-area networks, local-area networks,
and wireless networks. The remaining is
for routers, switches, and host platforms
for experimental testing of Internet protocols
and applications. This testing can be
done using isolated "Internet in
a room" facilities at either university,
or using the geographically distributed
testbed connecting the two endpoints.
Principal
Applicant: iCORE Professor Carey Williamson,
University of Calgary CO-applicants:
Derek Eager, CS, U of S
Rick Bunt, CS, U of S
Dwight Makaroff, CS, U of S
The
current research team also includes: Martin
Arlitt - a senior research associate,
with expertise in Web server performance
and Web workload characterization; Guangwei
Bai - a post-doctoral fellow with expertise
in Internet traffic measurement and analytical
traffic modeling; Qian Wu - a research
associate, with expertise in TCP/IP protocols
and in network simulation; Tianbo Kuang
- a research associate, with expertise
in video compression, less networks, and
network traffic measurement; and four
graduate students at this time.
The
work at the U of C end is closely related
to the TeleSim group (high performance
network simulation and network emulation).
Key collaborators are Rob Simmonds and
Brian Unger.
Total
value of project: $4.25M
CFI contribution: $1.7M
3)
Nanofabrication Facility
CFI has awarded just over $3 million for
an extension of the current University
of Alberta MicroFab to include nanoscale
patterning and full micromachining capability.
The new facility will be called the University
of Alberta Micromachining and Nanofabrication
Facility (or NanoFab), and will be the
top facility of its kind in Canada, comprising
some 5500 square feet of cleanroom and
$14M total of infrastructure. The NanoFab
is an open access facility, and to date
has served 234 users from 52 different
research groups originating from 6 universities
and 11 industries across Canada. iCORE
helps support the NanoFab through the
NanoCore project of Brett/Freeman that
is funding two research and process development
staff in the facility.
Principal
Applicant:
Michael Brett, Electrical and Computer
Engineering, University of Alberta
Coapplicants:
Chris Backhouse, ECE, U of A
Steven Dew, ECE, U of A
Robert Fedosejevs, ECE, U of A
Mark Freeman, Physics, U of A
Joel Haber, Chemistry, U of A
Jed Harrison, Chemistry, U of A
Alkiviathes Meldrum, Physics, U of A
Linda Pilarski, Oncology, U of A
Total
value of project: $8.25M CFI contribution:
$3M
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