doctor jeffrey woodford at a podium

Students at primarily undergraduate institutions in Missouri will soon have access to greater computing power, thanks to a National Science Foundation grant of nearly $700,000 awarded to Missouri Western State University and three other universities in the state.

“Students who graduate right now are going into a world where computational knowledge is assumed,” said Dr. Jeffrey Woodford, professor of chemistry at Missouri Western and principal investigator for the grant. “This will raise the bar on computer literacy. The world is awash with data, and giving our students the tools to work with that data in a meaningful way is vital.”

The $693,923 grant from the NSF creates the Computational Infusion for Missouri Undergraduate Science and Engineering, composed of Missouri Western, Southeast Missouri State University, Truman State University and Webster University along with the Missouri Research and Education Network (MOREnet) and the University of Missouri System Research Support Services. The consortium will install a high-performance computing cluster that will allow users to process large quantities of data and perform highly complex calculations much faster than a typical desktop or laptop computer.

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