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Research Computing Fellowships
The Graduate Center is pleased to announce a fellowship opportunity for its doctoral students, beginning in the 2009-10 academic year. The IT Research Computing Fellowship is open to all doctoral students in good standing.
Information Technology provides and maintains high-performance Research Computing facilities and services, which include parallel computer clusters, access to the NY State Grid and associated software packages and support services to serve doctoral student and faculty researchers across the breadth of the CUNY.
About the Research Computing Fellows
Doctoral students staffing the position of Research Computing Fellows assist with the operation, management and design of the local computational cluster, access to the New York State Grid and with specialized software applications. The Research Computing Fellows also fulfill critical roles as technical liaisons between the research computing resources and faculty and student grid users at the various campus sites. These individuals must possess exceptional technical proficiency as well as an interest in contributing to the work of the CUNY research community.
Responsibilities
Specific responsibilities include the development of software tools, interfaces and subsystems to support users of Research Computing resources; the design, planning and implementation of software and hardware installations and upgrades; the support of users of Research Computing resources through training activities, on-site and remote hardware and software support; and the administration of Research computing facilities, which may involve imaging compute nodes of the computational cluster, configuring wide-area grid services, data backup and restoration and account maintenance.
Preferred qualifications
Preferred qualifications include systems administration experience with Linux distributions such as SUSE, Red Hat or Debian; familiarity in a LINUX/UNIX environment with such concepts as account management, process monitoring, security, system optimization, typical scripting languages and their commands (e.g., bash, awk, etc.), disk utilities (fdisk, druid, etc), backup procedures (especially AMANDA), various network protocols (TCP/IP, http, ftp, NFS, NIS, LDAP), Linux/Windows integration (Samba), and troubleshooting system failures. Programming experience is preferred, specifically in Java (for grid related applications); other languages such as Python PERL, C or C++ are acceptable. In addition, familiarity with or interest in learning about any of the following is preferred.
- Distributed resource management systems, such as the Sun Grid Engine.
- Grid software management systems such as the Open Science Grid Virtual Data Toolkit.
- Programming libraries for distributed computing and mathematical programming, such as MPI.
More about the IT Research Computing Fellowship
The IT Research Computing Fellowship is a Graduate Assistant A (GAA) appointment with a starting salary of $22,916 as of its effective starting date, which is September 1st, 2009. This base salary will increase by 3% to $23,604 effective October 20, 2009 as the result of the implementation of the final phase of the current PSC-CUNY collective bargaining contract. The fellowship also provides for in-state tuition remission for recipients who are within their first 10 semesters of study at the GC, and eligibility for the New York State Health Insurance Program (NYSHIP) for CUNY doctoral students. (The fellowship is paid over 12 months to enable the recipients to qualify for year-round health benefits.) The cost of individual coverage under NYSHIP is $5.74 per bi-weekly pay period. CUNY is underwriting 90% of the cost (through the Chancellor's Office). The contractual workload is 15 hours per week for 15 weeks for each of two semesters, for a total of 450 hours of service.
NOTE: The PSC-CUNY contract stipulates that Graduate Assistant As are not permitted to do any other work at CUNY during the annual appointment, which includes the summer. However, since 1999, PSC-CUNY and the University have signed an annual agreement to suspend the workload restrictions during the summer; the agreement permits GAAs to teach; or, subject to the availability of funds, to work as a non-teaching adjunct to continue as a Research Computing Fellow during the summer.
Appointments are made by way of a nomination process managed by the Assistant Director for IT Research Computing. In accordance with the PSC-CUNY contract, GAAs are subject to an annual performance observation/evaluation which will be conducted by the Assistant Director for IT Research Computing. Appointments are made for a one-year period; incumbent Research Computing Fellows may self-nominate or be nominated to compete for a another annual appointment. Again, in accordance with the PSC-CUNY contract, annual appointments to the GAA/Research Computing Fellowship may not exceed five consecutive appointments. The five-year consecutive appointment period includes prior service in all Graduate Assistant titles - Graduate Assistant A, B or C.
How to apply
Research groups and departments may recommend doctoral students for these positions as they become available; doctoral students may also self-nominate. To apply for the Research Computing Fellowship, please contact Florian Lengyel by email at flengyel@gc.cuny.edu no later than July 1st, 2009. Applicants should include a current c.v. and a letter from the applicant indicating his/her interest in the Research Computing Fellowship and the work that it entails.
Additional information about the IT Research Computing Fellows program can be obtained by contacting Florian Lengyel at flengyel@gc.cuny.edu or at 212-817-7374.
