Computing doctoral student Andrew Jones has been working virtually as a research and development graduate with scientists at the Sandia National Laboratory in New Mexico, studying ocean and atmospheric phenomena. Sandia National Laboratory is the largest Department of Energy National Lab in the country, and home to the Computer Science Research Institute (CSRI).
Jones’ internship at CSRI is focused on accelerating particle methods for solving partial differential equations that govern ocean and atmospheric phenomena related to climate.
Jones hails from Kennesaw, Georgia, where he earned his bachelor’s degree in physics at Kennesaw State University. He is mentored at Boise State by math professor Grady Wright. Currently, Jones says his favorite component of the internship is the opportunity to work with such a large group of experts on cutting-edge research.
“[It’s inspiring] just being part of an awesome and expansive organization and being able to go to seminars on using large scale software frameworks, machine learning, shocks and explosives, and collaboration with other scientists at Sandia,” said Jones.
Despite COVID-19 preventing his travel to CSRI, Jones loves the opportunity to work virtually with scientists at a national lab, and the opportunity to attend all the seminars the lab has to offer, specifically the Atmospheric Science Seminar. This seminar takes place once a week and focuses on many different types of computational research that Jones will carry with him throughout his career.
According to Jones, computing is essential to help shape research about ocean and atmospheric phenomena.
“To understand and predict the behavior of ocean and atmosphere, use of numerical computation is carried out at millions of points on the surface on the Earth, which requires supercomputers and massively parallel algorithms and software frameworks for fast and efficient results,” said Jones.
Jones contacted one of the lab managers, who he met at the SIAM CSE 19 conference when internship applications opened in October 2019. He noted that connecting with the lab manager at the SIAM CSE conference allowed him to find out if his prior experience would be a good fit for any of the research being done at CSRI.
Students interested in internships, fellowships, or co-ops with CSRI can visit this site for more information: https://www.sandia.gov/careers/students_postdocs/internships/institutes/ccr.html