Research Magazine > ARCHIVE > Summer 97 > Article

Behind the Scenes

Long before their findings ever make headlines, researchers rely on dozens of UGA laboratories and other research support services to advance their work. We spotlight some of them on this page.

Many UGA researchers rely on University Computing and Networking Services (UCNS) as much as they do water or electricity in their laboratories. Among the researchers who use UCNS are:

• Astrophysicist Peter Hauschildt, who used a UCNS supercomputer, the IBM SP2, to create PHOENIX, a program that constructs visuals of novas and supernovas;
• Robert Hoyt, a professor of insurance, who relies on the IBM mainframe at UCNS to devise bankruptcy prediction models from 11 years of annual financial statement data from approximately 4,000 insurance companies that operate in the United States;
• Biochemist and molecular biologist Robert Woods, who has two nodes of the IBM R6000 cluster dedicated to his research program that pertains to antibacterial vaccine design;
• James Herbert, artist and film maker, who used the UCNS Digital Media Studio and its 3-D computer rendering techniques to edit his latest film, Scars.

UCNS staff also support 100 research computing laboratories, which are used for research and instruction. UCNS also enables researchers to store presentations on the World Wide Web and then access them from remote sites across campus or across the ocean. Training seminars are another way UCNS helps researchers.

"UCNS keeps the machines running for all the users, does all the system management and maintenance and helps us whenever our codes don't quite run the way we want them to run," physics Professor Bernd Schuttler said. "They educate us on the latest software and hardware, and they work to make our lives easier and more enjoyable."

Visit the UCNS web site at http://www.uga.edu/~ucns.

UGA astrophysicist Peter Hauschildt uses a supercomputer to simulate the physics of supernova explosions like Supernova 1987A, which is about 170,000 light years from Earth.

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