Mentoring the Next Generation of Science Gateway Developers and Users

The Science Gateway Institute (SGW-I) for the Democratization and Acceleration of Science was a SI2-SSE Collaborative Research conceptualization award funded by NSF in 2012. From 2012 through 2015, we engaged interested members of the science and engineering community in a planning process for a Science Gateway Community Institute (SGCI). Science Gateways provide Web interfaces to some of the most sophisticated cyberinfrastructure resources. They interact with remotely executing science applications on supercomputers, they connect to remote scientific data collections, instruments and sensor streams, and support large collaborations. Gateways allow scientists to concentrate on the most challenging science problems while underlying components such as computing architectures and interfaces to data collection changes. The goal of our institute was to provide coordinating activities across the National Science Foundation, eventually providing services more broadly to projects funded by other agencies. SGW-I has succeeded in identifying two underrepresented communities of future gateway designers and users. The Association of Computer and Information Science/Engineering Departments at Minority Institutions (ADMI) was identified as a source of future gateway designers. The National Organization for the Professional Advancement of Black Chemists and Chemical Engineers (NOBCChE) was identified as a community of future science gateway users. SGW-I efforts to engage NOBCChE and ADMI faculty and students in SGW-I are now woven into the workforce development component of SGCI. SGCI (ScienceGateways.org ) is a collaboration of six universities, led by San Diego Supercomputer Center. The workforce development component is led by Elizabeth City State University (ECSU). ECSU efforts focus is on: Produce a model of engagement; Integration of research into education; and Mentoring of students while aggressively addressing diversity. This paper documents the outcome of the SGW-I conceptualization project and describes the extensive Workforce Development effort going forward into the 5-year SGCI project recently funded by NSF.