The Academic Impact of NEES

Ian BuckleUniversity of Nevada Reno

In the beginning…

• NEES was born out of a critical need to have advanced, large-scale, experimental capabilities in the U.S. to:– accelerate earthquake risk reduction– validate numerical simulation tools that were far

more sophisticated than experimental tools at that time

– catch up with the rest of the world, principally Japan, Taiwan, and Europe

In the beginning…

• NEES was a culture shift from Day One:– Distributed facilities at a scale not seen before…

anywhere (shake tables, centrifuges, hybrid labs, field testing, wave basin…) with annual operating grants

– Facilities operated under ‘shared-use’ agreement with NSF through NEESinc and later NEEScomm

– Facilities had telepresence capabilities to enable remote usage /shared use

In the beginning…

• NEES was a culture shift from Day One:– Data and metadata required to be uploaded to a

repository for public release…– Multi-disciplinary/multi-institutional research teams

funded– Numerical simulation /high performance computing

tools supported– Educational/outreach mandate, both national and

international• The NEES Collaboratory was born

10 years later…

• What has been the academic impact?• From two points of view– Research and researchers– Facilities and capabilities

10 years later… researchers

• Priceless opportunity to work in state-of-the-art facilities to: – push the boundaries of knowledge– work in multidisciplinary teams / expand research

horizons through synergistic efforts– attract the best and brightest students to advance

earthquake engineering and accelerate earthquake risk reduction (more than 200 PhD students supported)

Research projects completed

Site NEESR, Pre-NEESR and Payload Non- NEESR Shared Use Industry Total

Buffalo 22 3 89 114Cornell 4 1 0 5Illinois 14 1 0 15Lehigh 11 9 3 23

Minnesota 14 0 0 14UNR 18 4 34 56

Oregon State 13 3 26 42RPI 9 4 9 22

UC Berkeley 14 1 2 17UC Davis 14 8 6 28

UCLA 12 10 1 23UCSD 11 4 2 17UCSB 3 1 0 4Texas 15 13 14 42

Total (2002-2013) 174 62 186 422

- Julio Ramirez

Publications referencing NEES research

NEES Student participation (completed degree)

- Julio Ramirez

Data within Project Warehouse

- Julio Ramirez

Curation of Experiments on NEEShub

12/2007 12/2008 12/2009 12/2010 12/2011 12/2012 09/2013

Archived 0 0 0 0 0 2 18

Complete 10 79 211 380 460 692 1246

Current 0 12 1 8 42 94 98

Noncompliant 8 34 22 60 111 198 102

100

300

500

700

900

1100

1300

1079

211

380460

692

1246

8 34 2260

111198

102

Curation progress at NEES N

umbe

r of

cur

ated

exp

erim

ents

- Julio Ramirez

• Red dots represent researchers and students browsing NEEShub, watching videos, and taking courses while performing 840,656 web and 38,854 tool sessions between August 2010 and April 2013.

• Yellow dots represent users who are running simulations. • Dot size corresponds to the number of users at a location.

Global Impact of NEEShub Cyberinfrastructure

- Julio Ramirez

Workforce development – NEESR students

31%

25%

41%

3%

NEES student participation (completed degree)

Ph.D. M.S.U/G Post Doc

workforce academic unknown

Ph.D. 0.3 0.62 0.08

M.S. 0.32 0.5 0.18

5%

15%

25%

35%

45%

55%

65%

Where are the alumni of NEESR research projects?

% o

f Tot

al

- Julio Ramirez

Signature Research Projects

10-years later… facilities

• Pushing the boundaries of experimentation

10-years later… facilities

• Advanced data acquisition/visualization tools• Calibrated instrumentation and equipment• Accreditation (in some cases)• Maintained equipment • Enhanced safety culture• Stable funding for laboratory personnel• Site Administrators (scheduling, facilitating access

by off-site researchers…)• Four new laboratories – bricks and mortar

In the beginning…

• NEES was born out of a critical need to have advanced, large-scale, experimental capabilities in the U.S. to:– accelerate earthquake risk reduction– validate numerical simulation tools that were far

more sophisticated than experimental tools at that time

– catch up with the rest of the world, principally Japan, Taiwan, and Europe

Summary

Thank You