New Certificate In Computational Science Will Boost Marketability Of UB Students

BUFFALO, N.Y. -- An advanced-certificate program in computational science designed to train science-and-engineering graduate students at the University at Buffalo in scientific computing has been approved by the New York State Education Department and the Chancellor of the State University of New York.

The program, a cooperative effort between UB's Center for Computational Research (CCR) and participating UB departments, is available to students pursuing master's and doctoral degrees in mathematics, physics, chemical engineering and mechanical and aerospace engineering.

"The certificate program will make these students a lot more marketable to prospective employers," said E. Bruce Pitman, Ph.D., chair of education, outreach and training programs at CCR and a UB professor of mathematics.

The program, one in a series of certificate programs recently approved at UB, strengthens UB's mission to provide graduates with training within traditional degree programs that is consistent with the changing needs of the industries in which they eventually will work.

Pitman explained that working in the emerging field of computational science requires a strong background in a particular discipline or application, along with training in high-performance computing. A multidisciplinary field that unites computer technology with many kinds of disciplinary research, computational science often is called the "third science," complementing theoretical and laboratory science.

In addition to high-technology, fields that require this kind of expertise include the investment community, where advanced computing is used to develop new financial products; advanced engineering and design firms for the automotive and aerospace industries, and national laboratories, where scientists use scientific computing to do everything from predicting the weather to designing new chemical catalysts.

"This certificate is a valuable addition to UB's growing inventory of certificate programs, which are designed to provide students with the advantage of a credential certifying that they have obtained education and training targeted to a specific area of expertise," said Myron A. Thompson, Ph.D., UB associate provost, executive director of the Graduate School and interim vice provost for graduate education.

Students in the certificate program must take a total of 15 hours of approved graduate coursework -- usually five courses -- including a two-semester course in high-performance computing offered by CCR in collaboration with the departments of Chemical Engineering, Mathematics, Physics and Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering. Students select the remaining nine hours from computing and applications courses offered by each of the participating departments.

"These requirements highlight the interdisciplinary nature of computational science because they expose students to fundamental methods while providing them with an understanding of how computing is applied to their chosen discipline," said Pitman.