NSF Student Travel Grant for IEEE Cluster 2021

The Cluster 2021 Conference is a premier conference in the field of cluster computing and in the use of cluster systems for scientific and commercial applications. The conference brings together researchers, developers and users from academia, industry, laboratories, and commerce to discuss recent advances and trends in many areas related to cluster computing, including applications, architectures, programming, data and visualization.

The conference will be held online from September 7-10, 2021. The project will fund students to participate in the conference, to engage deeply with the Cluster research community. The Cluster student participation program provides a comprehensive means for students to improve their overall research skills and career planning efforts, beyond presenting posters and papers.

The project serves the national interest, as stated by NSF's mission, to promote the progress of science as it provides a forum to disseminate research efforts, connect researchers, and train the next generation of scholars.

Due to Covid-19 safety issues, the conference will be fully virtual. The student program committee for the conference is recruiting students with an emphasis on diversity and inclusion of underrepresented groups and from a diverse set of institutions. The conference will run specific student-centric sessions during the conference, including sessions on research presentation training, research career guidance, industry interaction, and a meeting/discussion with the authors of the best paper candidates from the conference.

While the project will enable funding a significant fraction of the students attending the conference, some students are presenting papers and posters at the conference and will be given priority for funding. The funding provided by NSF will have a significant impact on the careers of the future generation of researchers in cluster computing, while encouraging diversity in the field.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.