Computers, computation, and networking are fundamental tools used in support of research in the Physical Sciences Division. Each department, institute, and research unit has incorporated computational tools in virtually every aspect of its research.

A list (by no means comprehensive) of examples of ways in which computers and networks are used for research would include:

(1) computer visualization of three-dimensional molecular structure and bonding in synthetic chemistry;

(2) data mining of terabyte-scale data bases from high-energy physics experiments or star surveys;

(3) simulation of the effects of atmospheric constituents on the climate over the next century;

(4) development of new network operating systems by computer scientists;

(5) on-line acquisition and manipulation of data from x-rays at the Advanced Photon Source.

Research is carried out by individual faculty working with graduate students and postdocs, by larger collaborations of groups of faculty, and by consortia involving other universities and government laboratories.

Each department, institute, and research unit is responsible for acquiring, installing, maintaining and upgrading its own computational tools and equipment. The Division provides support in all of these tasks.

At the Division level we employ 10.25 FTE equivalent positions including a Director of Computing. Six (6) of these Divisional positions are managed and supported in collaboration with NSIT and the DSM (the Distributed Systems Management) program.

Additionally, within the Division there are more than 22 Information Technology workers located in more than 15 different organizations including the ASCI Flash Center (Advanced Strategic Computing Initiative), the EPA Environmental Statistics Center, the Frontier Center for Cosmological Physics (CfCP), and the Center for Advanced Radiation Studies (CARS) among others. Funding for these and other similar Information Technology support positions is traditionally grant based and is not enumerated in this report, although such staff do connect to varying extents with the DSM staff and the Director of PSD Computing. Recharge operations in support of research in the Division include the EFI Electronics Shop and the University of Chicago Engineering Center (Hyde Park and Yerkes).