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Research at SCI

 

The Scientific Computing and Imaging Institute (SCI Institute) is one of the permanent research institutes at the University of Utah. The SCI research group was created in 1994 and formally became an institute in 2000. The SCI Institute is directed by Professor Chris Johnson and consists of over 100 faculty, students, and staff.

The Scientific Computing and Imaging Institute has established itself as a leader in engineering and research in the areas of scientific computing, scientific visualization, and imaging. The overarching research goal of the SCI Institute is to create new scientific computing techniques, tools, and systems with which to solve problems affecting various aspects of human life. The focus of the Institute has been largely in medicine, but we have also solved computational and imaging problems in other application areas such as geophysics, chemical engineering, molecular dynamics, aerospace fluid mechanics, combustion, and atmospheric dispersion.

The SCI Institute has four major long-term goals. The first goal is to perform technical research into the computational and numerical methods required for scientific computing. The second goal is to explore the paradigm of integrated problem solving environments as an efficient approach for scientists in many disciplines to solve their own computational problems. The third goal is to research new techniques for scientific visualization, and to develop visual analysis tools that help increase the understanding of complex scientific data. The final goal represents our desire, as researchers, to use scientific computing to understand our own particular disciplines, for example, numerical mathematics, fluid dynamics, atmospheric dynamics, biophysics, electrocardiography, bioelectric fields in the brain, and medical imaging.

The Scientific Computing and Imaging Institute currently houses two research centers: the NIH Center for Integrative Biomedical Computing and the DOE Advanced Visualization Technology Center. In addition, the Scientific Computing and Imaging Institute is formally associated with several other National research efforts: the NSF Partners in Advanced Computational Infrastructure (NCSA PACI), two DOE SciDAC Centers, and the DOE Center for the Simulation of Accidental Fires and Explosions.