Affholter participates in Seattle supercomputing conference

Kathleen Affholter, a geology and earth science instructor, was one of eight educators from East Tennessee who participated in the national Supercomputing 2005 Conference in Seattle.

Affholter was part of the Appalachian-East Tennessee Science Partnership team that attended a session in November on “Engaging and Empowering Educators: The High-Performance Classroom.”

The conference session included introducing a new teaching model for high- performance computing that would enable faculty, undergraduate students and K-12 educators to use computer science applications across a variety of content areas.

Those areas include nanotechnology, life science, visualization, earth and atmospheric sciences, computer science, mathematics, chemistry and physics.

“At the beginning of the conference, the scientists and educators seemed to be talking in different languages,” Affholter said. “But by the end, organizers had met many of their objectives—the educators began to understand, in a general way, about supercomputing, and the scientists began to understand, in a general way, the reality of teaching.”

Affholter, who earned a doctorate in geology from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, has worked with educators before, leading an earth science class in weather for teachers at Pellissippi State last summer.

This summer, the East Tennessee team will go to Purdue University, where they will explain to computer scientists at the university how an earth science curriculum being developed will incorporate high-performance computing applications. They also will continue with high-performance computer technology training.

The team members also are to make a presentation on plate tectonics at the Supercomputing 2006 Conference in Tampa. The annual conferences, sponsored by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Computer Society and the Association for Computing Machinery, highlight innovative developments in high-performance computing, storage and networking.

High-performance computer technology focuses on developing supercomputers and software as a way to provide information technology solutions for business, industry, institutional and government users. Supercomputers are the fastest type of computer and are employed for specialized applications that require large amounts of mathematical calculations.

The Appalachian-East Tennessee Science Partnership is operating with a three-year Tennessee Department of Education grant to focus on improving the teaching and learning of science in middle schools in Campbell, Fentress, Union and Johnson counties.

"Inside Pellissippi" is a bi-monthly electronic publication produced by the Community Relations Office for the faculty and staff of Pellissippi State Technical Community College, 10915 Hardin Valley Road, P.O. Box 22990, Knoxville, Tennessee 37933-0990. All suggestions and comments should be sent to Julia Wood (jwood@pstcc.edu).

For past issues, visit the Inside Pellissippi Archive.