{"654649":{"#nid":"654649","#data":{"type":"news","title":"Major Philanthropic Grant Will Create New Center to Advance Open-Source Software","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EThe Georgia Tech College of Computing has received an $11 million grant from Schmidt Futures to create one of the four software engineering centers within the newly launched Virtual Institute for Scientific Software (VISS). The new center will hire half-a-dozen software engineers to write scalable, reliable, and portable open-source software for scientific research.\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003E\u0026ldquo;Scientific research involves increasingly complex software, technologies, and platforms,\u0026rdquo; said\u0026nbsp;\u003Cstrong\u003EAlessandro Orso\u003C\/strong\u003E, the software engineer and professor of computer science who is heading up the project. \u0026ldquo;Also, platforms constantly evolve, and the complexity and amount of data involved is ever-growing.\u0026rdquo;\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003EThe result is that these software systems are often developed as prototypes that are difficult to understand, maintain, and use, which limits their efficacy and ultimately hinders scientific progress.\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003ESoftware engineers are trained to address these kinds of issues and know how to build high-quality software, but their time is too expensive for a typical research project\u0026rsquo;s budget. In typical grants, software is often treated as a byproduct of research, meaning that limited funding is allocated for it.\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003EThat\u0026rsquo;s where\u0026nbsp;\u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/www.schmidtfutures.com\/\u0022\u003ESchmidt Futures\u003C\/a\u003E\u0026nbsp;comes in. Schmidt Futures is\u0026nbsp;a philanthropic initiative\u0026nbsp;founded by\u0026nbsp;\u003Cstrong\u003EEric\u003C\/strong\u003E\u0026nbsp;and\u0026nbsp;\u003Cstrong\u003EWendy\u003C\/strong\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003Cstrong\u003ESchmidt\u003C\/strong\u003E\u0026nbsp;that bets early on exceptional people\u0026nbsp;making the world better.\u0026nbsp;They are investing $40 million in VISS over five years at four universities: Georgia Tech, University of Washington, Johns Hopkins University, and University of Cambridge.\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003E\u0026ldquo;Schmidt Futures\u0026rsquo; Virtual Institute for Scientific Software is a core part of our efforts to mobilize exceptional talent to solve specific hard problems in science and society,\u0026rdquo; said Executive Vice President\u0026nbsp;\u003Cstrong\u003EElizabeth Young-McNally\u003C\/strong\u003E.\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003EAt Georgia Tech, the funds will hire a software engineering lead, as well as three senior and two junior software engineers. A faculty director and an advisory board will help guide the group\u0026rsquo;s work, which will include collaborations with Georgia Tech scientists.\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003E\u0026quot;We are very proud to host one of the four inaugural Schmidt Futures Virtual Institute of Scientific Software centers,\u0026rdquo; said\u0026nbsp;\u003Cstrong\u003ECharles Isbell\u003C\/strong\u003E, Dean and John P. Imlay Jr. Chair of Computing.\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003E\u0026ldquo;Georgia Tech\u0026rsquo;s center will advance and support scientific research by applying modern software engineering practices, cutting-edge technologies, and modern tools to the development of scientific software. The center will also engage with students and researchers to train the next generation of software engineering leaders.\u0026rdquo;\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n","summary":null,"format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":"","field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"Using a new philanthropic grant, Georgia Tech will hire software engineers to write scalable, reliable, and portable open-source software for scientific research."}],"uid":"32045","created_gmt":"2022-01-21 14:33:09","changed_gmt":"2022-01-24 16:06:04","author":"Ben Snedeker","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","dateline":{"date":"2022-01-21T00:00:00-05:00","iso_date":"2022-01-21T00:00:00-05:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"hg_media":{"654650":{"id":"654650","type":"image","title":"Software engineering ideas","body":null,"created":"1642775687","gmt_created":"2022-01-21 14:34:47","changed":"1642775687","gmt_changed":"2022-01-21 14:34:47","alt":"Clear light bulb in foreground with blue screen binary code as background","file":{"fid":"248265","name":"fellowship_banner_hg.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/fellowship_banner_hg_0.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/www.tlwarc.hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/fellowship_banner_hg_0.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":42805,"path_740":"http:\/\/www.tlwarc.hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/fellowship_banner_hg_0.jpg?itok=Zq_Javm4"}}},"media_ids":["654650"],"groups":[{"id":"37041","name":"Computational Science and Engineering"},{"id":"50877","name":"School of Computational Science and Engineering"},{"id":"50875","name":"School of Computer Science"},{"id":"50876","name":"School of Interactive Computing"},{"id":"1214","name":"News Room"},{"id":"1188","name":"Research Horizons"}],"categories":[],"keywords":[{"id":"109","name":"Georgia Tech"},{"id":"654","name":"College of Computing"},{"id":"170965","name":"software engineering"},{"id":"189775","name":"Schmidt Futures"}],"core_research_areas":[{"id":"39501","name":"People and Technology"}],"news_room_topics":[{"id":"71881","name":"Science and Technology"}],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EAnn Claycombe, Director of Communications\u003Cbr \/\u003E\r\n\u003Ca href=\u0022mailto:claycombe@cc.gatech.edu?subject=Philanthropic%20grant\u0022\u003Eclaycombe@cc.gatech.edu\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n","format":"limited_html"}],"email":["claycombe@cc.gatech.edu"],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}}}