Birmingham Environment for Academic Research (BEAR) Newsletter
This month, we have exciting news about award-winning research in the international HPCwire awards, plus three posts available within Advanced Research Computing. Further to October’s newsletter, our two student teams for the CIUK Cluster Challenge, return-1 and TED, have now completed challenge 3. Results are still to be announced but they were both strongly placed after Challenge 1, in joint 5th place out of 16 teams. You can keep up to date via the Cluster Challenge webpage or via X – #CIUK2024
Included in this month’s BEAR newsletter:
- New Graduate Systems Engineer and Data Scientist posts in Advanced Research Computing
- Dates for upcoming maintenance in December and January
- HPC Wire 2024 Readers’ Choice Awards – Best Use of HPC in Life Sciences
- The Institute for Data and AI Ideation workshop – 5 December
- Call for applications for Turing’s online Data Study Group
- Code Anxiety Club
- Case study on using BlueBEAR to design novel battery materials
- BEAR drop-in sessions
New Graduate Systems Engineer and Data Scientist posts in Advanced Research Computing
We are currently recruiting for three vacancies in Advanced Research Computing (ARC), two of which are new posts. We are looking for a graduate (recently graduated or in final year of study) to grow into a Research Infrastructure Engineer – for details see the Graduate Systems Engineer blog post (closing date 5 January 2025). Please share with relevant students in your area.
There are also two Grade 8 Research Data Scientist posts available, funded by the Institute for Data and AI but operationally based within ARC; 1) Senior Research Data Scientist and Manager and 2) Senior Research Data Scientist (closing date 12 January 2025). These two posts are currently only open for internal applicants but should be viewable from the University job site from 28 November.
Dates for upcoming maintenance in December and January
We now have dates for both maintenance periods in December and January. Between 8am on Monday 16 and 8am on Wednesday 18 December BlueBEAR (HPC) including the BEAR portal, BEAR Data Transfer and Baskerville (Tier 2 HPC) will be unavailable. All BEAR services, including the Research Data Store should be considered at risk during that period.
Dates for the January maintenance have just been confirmed as being between 8am on Tuesday 7 and 12pm on Thursday 9 January. As this is when the transformer is being replaced, a full power shutdown is needed, so all BEAR services will be unavailable – see the blog post on upcoming maintenance for more details.
HPC Wire 2024 Readers’ Choice Awards – Best Use of HPC in Life Sciences
We are excited to announce that a research group who use our advanced computing facilities has been recognised as award-winning in the HPCwire 2024 awards! Advanced Research Computing is very proud to provide the BEAR computing facilities to support life-changing research at the University, which has again been internationally recognised in these highly competitive, global awards. You can find out more details on the winning research conducted by Professor Andrew Beggs’ research group, which was awarded ‘Best Use of HPC in Life Sciences’ in our awards blog post.
The Institute for Data and AI Ideation workshop – 5 December
The Institute for Data and AI (IDAI – formally IIDSAI) invites researchers to promote your exciting new ideas and find collaborations across all disciplines around the University at their first networking event, the IDAI Ideation workshop, on Thursday 5 December, 1.00-5.00pm. IDAI’s mission is to promote emerging collaborative, transformative, and impactful data-intensive and AI-centred research across all disciplines around our University – our Ideation Workshop will be an important part of enabling this research network. To find out more details and register go to the registration form here.
Call for applications for Turing’s online Data Study Group
Applications are currently open for the Turing Data Study Group, taking place online in early 2025. Data Study Groups (DSGs) are intensive ‘collaborative hackathons’ which bring together organisations from industry, government and the third sector, with talented multi-disciplinary researchers from academia. For details on the topics for this Data Study Group and how to apply, see the Data Study Group webpage (deadline Thursday 28 November).
Code Anxiety Club
The UK Data Service are running a series of coding sessions for those who are feeling overwhelmed by the command line, confused by file pathways, or wanting to navigate the world of coding with confidence! The Code Anxiety Club will work through common beginner topics while coding live for 30 minutes. You can access recordings of previous sessions and links to future live ones in December via the Code Anxiety Club webpage.
Case study on using BlueBEAR to design novel battery materials
In this month’s featured case study, Sandeep Das (researcher in the School of Chemistry), explains how he has made use of BlueBEAR to design novel Li-ion battery materials, essential in the drive towards electric vehicles. The simulations required to understand new battery materials are resource heavy and time consuming. Sandeep describes how BlueBEAR has allowed him to carry out his research at larger scales, closer to practical scenarios and achievable in affordable timescales, particularly with the recent addition of Intel Sapphire Rapids nodes to speed up calculations. Have a read of Sandeep’s case study to find out more.
BEAR drop-in sessions
We have both virtual and in-person drop-in session dates in November and December – check the drop-in webpage for updates, as well as details on how to join the sessions. Currently scheduled dates are also listed below:
- Via Zoom – Friday 29 November, 10.00-11.00am
- In-person – Wednesday 4 December, 12.00-1.00pm – Staff House, ground floor (near the Bratby Bar)
- Via Zoom – Tuesday 10 December, 12.00-1.00pm
Missed last month’s newsletter?
Find October’s newsletter here. Sign up to receive the newsletter direct to your inbox by joining our bear-updates mailing list here (UoB login required), or ask to join via email at bearinfo@contacts.bham.ac.uk