Empowering the future of research
The OARC Statistical Methods and Data Analytics Research Technology Group’s website is the most visited website in the UCLA domain. The site draws international traffic, including 3,092,624 visitors in FY 2024. This visualization shows a sample of incoming traffic to the site from all over the world.
Visualization developed by Lauren Cullen, Ryan Horne, Benjamin Winjum, and Eleanor Koehl.
Letter from the OARC Executive Director
Dear Colleagues,
This past year has been transformative for OARC as we have made significant strides in facilitating and advancing research computing, research data platform developments, and AI capabilities for our research community.
Key accomplishments include facilitating over 110M hours of research activity on the Hoffman2 HPC, conducting over 750 research consultations, collaborating on novel research data platforms, and maintaining the OARC stats site as the most visited website under the UCLA domain for consecutive years. We are incredibly grateful for the opportunity to empower research at UCLA and educate the world in cutting-edge research methodologies. None of this would be possible without the hard work, expertise, and dedication of the entire OARC staff.
AI for Research
Acknowledging both the opportunities and risks of AI, OARC has placed significant emphasis on better understanding and building our competencies to complement our overall research support operations.
In early 2024, we launched a six-month AI Accelerator, resulting in the discovery of new AI capabilities that will enhance research on the Hoffman2 HPC cluster and improve speed and accuracy in visualization and mapping. We also focused on cultivating fundamental proficiencies in AI infrastructure planning, data architecture, engineering and RAG application, and managing AI projects. In addition, we strengthened our Hoffman2 HPC research cluster with additional GPUs to enhance AI research capabilities for the campus.
Looking forward, it is apparent that the years ahead will bring about uncertainty and challenges.
Nonetheless, we are steadfast in our belief that UCLA will persist in pushing the boundaries of research and discovery and remain the leading public institution for research and creative activities and OARC is here to support this vision.
In the upcoming year, our priorities include:
- Establishing a strategic roadmap for advancing research data management and scaling AI computing capabilities
- Enhancing access to national infrastructure and industry resources to meet the growing demands of advanced research data and AI initiatives
- Extending our research training workshop series to equip faculty and graduate researchers with advanced AI capabilities and skills that will assist in accelerating the research data lifecycle
I am incredibly proud of the progress we have made and excited about the future of research and AI at UCLA, as our community together continues to strive to make the world a better place. Thank you for your continued support and collaboration. We look forward to continuing to partner with you this year and the years to come.
Sincerely,
Davida Johnson
Executive Director
UCLA Office of Advanced Research Computing (OARC)
By the Numbers
Training & Events
- 1488 OARC RTG workshop attendees
- 53 OARC RTG workshops
- 9 Innovate@UCLA programs
Hoffman2 HPC Cluster
- 110 M CPU hours used
- 30M jobs run
- 136 Publications citing Hoffman2
Mobile and web apps
- 475,657 Web pages scanned for accessibility weekly
- 614 Drupal module patches deployed
- 54 Mobile apps published under the UCLA brand
Research impact
- 750 research consultations
- 35 presentations given
- 9 papers and books co-authored
Annual Highlights
OARC Chief Research Data Architect
OARC is pleased to welcome Amit Chourasia to UCLA as OARC’s Chief Research Data Architect.
Amit is a visionary and collaborative research computing leader with 20+ years of experience in building strategic partnerships to advance research, acquire advanced HPC infrastructure, and develop grant proposals and revenue generating services. He joins UCLA from UCSD, where he served as the Director for Software and Platforms at the San Diego Supercomputer Center (SDSC).
Amit will report to the Executive Director of OARC, Davida Johnson, and will advise the Vice
Chancellor of Research and Creative Activities, Roger Wakimoto, and the Executive Director for the Institute for Digital Research and Education, Deanna Needell. He will work in collaboration with stakeholders across campus to address gaps and insufficiencies and to seek alignment and prioritization of needs around research data management, advanced research computing capabilities, AI and research facilities.
Amit shares: “My goal is to catalyze impact and innovation for scientific advancements and societal benefits through versatile, comprehensive, and compelling cyberinfrastructure, partnerships, and projects. By ensuring that UCLA’s research computing ecosystem remains responsive to the evolving needs of researchers, educators, and students, I aim to empower groundbreaking discoveries and transformative learning experiences.”
Research Data and Web Platforms group wins UC Tech innovation award
OARC’s Research Data and Web Platforms Research Technology Group was awarded the UC Tech Larry L. Sautter Golden Award for Innovation in IT at the 2024 UC Tech Conference. The group was recognized for their work on the Oral Health Recommender System (OHRS), which employs generative artificial intelligence and a mobile app to provide real-time behavioral feedback on tooth brushing. The OHRS utilizes AWS Cloud infrastructure and a custom-built Reinforcement Learning Engine that the team developed. The OHRS project is being undertaken by a larger team of collaborators, including PI Professor Vivek Shetty in UCLA’s School of Dentistry and partners at Harvard University, University of Michigan, Arizona State University, and Florida State University.
OARC staff participate in Leadership Development training
OARC HR, in collaboration with Campus HR, launched a comprehensive leadership development program tailored for OARC managers, supervisors, and aspiring supervisors. The inaugural session, held in November 2024, saw over 20 OARC staff members engage in a full-day, interactive workshop focused on employee engagement. This training aimed to cultivate essential supervisory skills, including effective communication and motivation techniques, particularly within a diverse and geographically dispersed organization. Looking ahead to 2025, OARC plans to continue the leadership development series to offer additional professional development opportunities, inviting managers and supervisors to delve deeper into topics designed to further enhance their leadership skills and team management capabilities.
Artificial Intelligence
DataX+IDRE Research in Age of AI Symposium
The February 2024 Research in the Age of AI Symposium drew more than 150 attendees for an all-day event focused on the way AI is impacting research at UCLA. The event featured a mix of talks, panels, audience discussion, and a poster session. Its themes ranged from AI’s use in applications for social good and concerns surrounding ethics and societal impact to the need for theoretical underpinnings and improved technical infrastructure for AI research.
Speakers included:
- Dr. Shazeda Ahmed (Bunche Center)
- Dr. Alex Bui (Radiological Sciences)
- Dr. Keith Chen (Anderson School)
- Dr. Eleazar Eskin (Computational Medicine)
- Dr. Aditya Grover (Computer Science)
- Dr. Mayank Mehta (Physics, Neurology, and ECE)
- Dr. Seulgi Moon (Earth, Planetary, and Space Sciences)
- Dr. Omolola Ogunyemi (Radiological Sciences)
- Dr. Violet Peng (Computer Science)
- Dr. Sarah Roberts (Information Studies)
- Janey Rountree (California Policy Lab)
- Dr. Ramesh Srinivasan (Information Studies)
- Dr. Terence Tao (Mathematics)
- Dr. Wei Wang (Computer Science)
This IDRE- and DataX-coordinated event was co-sponsored by OARC and the Office of the Vice Chancellor for Research and Creative Activities.
The Future of AI in Research
AI has seen enormous strides in recent years, yet the theoretical foundation and transparency to explain and understand many AI phenomena have not kept pace. This lack of understanding impacts issues surrounding fairness, bias, and equity of the AI algorithms, as well as its uses in many critical applications and in education.
The conversations at the DataX+IDRE Research in the Age of AI symposium highlighted the need for domain experts in numerous areas to come together to address these growing challenges. The topics that need attention are broad: Quantum computing, cybersecurity, digital transformation, ethical AI, sustainability, biotechnology, and many more areas have moved to the forefront of AI advancement. Given how widespread AI and its impacts are, UCLA should commit to taking a broad perspective on AI advancement to promote these various applications and domains.
Where UCLA stands to have the most impact in AI is through its strong expertise in and commitment to social justice. If there is one opportunity for combined effort, I believe it is in AI for social good, which means both applications with social impact as well as ethical and responsible use, transparency, and trustworthiness.
By: Deanna Needell, Executive Director of IDRE, Professor of Mathematics and Dunn Family Endowed Chair in Data Theory
AI accelerator
OARC AI Capacity Accelerator builds staff expertise
OARC further developed its capacity to support generative AI projects through an innovative new internal program modeled on start-up accelerators. Cross-functional teams proposed projects to develop new AI services within OARC, with the ultimate goal of building staff expertise in generative AI.
Over a six-month period, the teams produced proof-of-concepts that demonstrated their ability to conceive, design, and build generative AI services for the betterment of UCLA researchers. The project teams delivered proof-of-concept solutions, including an AI assistant on the OARC website, AI integration with the JupyterHub interactive programming environment, use of an AI-enhanced commercial mapping software on the Hoffman2 cluster, and a secure AI environment for manufacturing and other industries.
Industry Partnerships
Innovate@UCLA Community Development
OARC is home to Innovate@UCLA, a vibrant and diverse community of leaders from across Southern California, from top technology executives to world renown UCLA faculty. Visit our Event Stars page to discover the brilliant minds who have shared their knowledge with our local community.
Innovate@UCLA expanded its community in 2024 by launching a CEO Advisory Board. This initiative invites top business leaders to explore opportunities for deeper col- laborations between industry and academia, all in support of our research and teaching mission.
At our annual Executive Leadership Awards Dinner (ELAD), a team of six UCLA students, known as Waste Watchers, received the Young Tech Professionals (YTP) Award for Social Impact and Innovation. Their award-winning project focuses on com- bating food waste through a sustainability-centered mobile app. A standout moment of the evening was the inspirational keynote address by Laurie Leshin, the first female Director of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL).
Innovate@UCLA hosts ‘Impact of AI on the Lives and Rights of Women and Underserved Communities’ Panel
Innovate@UCLA Women in Technology offered members a unique opportunity to learn from UCLA’s leading faculty through a webinar featuring UCLA professors Safiya Noble and Sarah T. Roberts. The session explored “The Implications of AI on Women and Underserved Communities,” highlighting how AI perpetuates entrenched structural barriers in the tech industry and the pervasive biases and inequities of computer algorithms.
Research Computing
Hoffman2 HPC Cluster Upgrades
The Hoffman2 High-Performance Compute Cluster grew by two petabytes of enterprise-class flash-based storage, which, among other benefits, provides:
- Better responsiveness with lower latency
- Improved workflows via new data and metadata services
- Higher power efficiency and reduced datacenter space utilization
Research applications on the Hoffman2 Cluster demonstrating significant performance improvements from flash-based storage include GPU-based artificial intelligence applications, parallel computing workflows where many computers simultaneously read or write data, software that operate on millions of files, and those that frequently and randomly access data. Hoffman2 users have provided positive feedback on the dramatic speedup in data processing with the new flash based storage.
The future of high-performance computing
OARC technologists continue to build expertise in integrating AI- and GPU-related workflows and analysis into our state-of-the-art HPC framework. These new avenues for HPC computing are attracting researchers in non-traditional fields.
HPC-as-a-Service (distributed and hybrid compute) will gain importance as researchers optimize workflows over on-premises and cloud computing resources to balance cost, interactivity, use intensiveness, and equipment amortization.
There is a huge latent demand for GPU resources. OARC is upgrading its research facilities to accommodate these requirements.
On-premises compute is vital for research and education and these will remain a mainstay for UCLA research in the near term. Peer institutions provide extensive on-premises computing capabilities; such facilities are a requirement for faculty recruitment and retention. We're upgrading facilities and exploring different technologies, like modular data centers and water cooling and immersion cooling required to support growth and advances in computing.
OARC's compute experts and experienced administrators will continue to innovate to facilitate the most complex computational workflows.
By: Brian Pape, Senior HPC Systems Architect and Manager of OARC’s HPC Systems Research Technology Group
Virtual Private HPC in the Cloud
OARC has created a user-friendly procedure to assist campus researchers in deploying their own HPC clusters on commercial cloud platforms like AWS and Google Cloud Platform. This solution empowers researchers with access to CPU and GPU resources and enables them to conduct simulations and data analyses utilizing parallel computing techniques (i.e., running multiple compute jobs simultaneously).
This service streamlines the process for researchers who want to initiate a cloud-based cluster environment, without requiring them to be experts in compute infrastructure. This work provides a scalable, complementary alternative to the Hoffman2 Cluster for those who prefer to work within a cloud environment.
HPC for North Campus series
Data-driven research using high-performance computing may be most strongly associated with STEM disciplines, but its utility has broadened to researchers in the humanities and social sciences. OARC organized HPC for North Campus, a three-event series that gathered attendees to hear talks focused on the application of methods commonly used in the disciplines of arts, humanities, and the social sciences on the Hoffman2 High-Performance Computing cluster. The talks included:
- Digital Humanities and HPC: Tool Use, Methodology, and a Practical Introduction to Integrating Hoffman2 into Your Research - Ryan Horne (OARC)
- Using the Hoffman2 Cluster to Investigate Linguistic History - David Goldstein (Professor of Linguistics, Indo-European, and Classics)
- How Can One Use Machine Learning and High Performance Computing for Humanities Research? - Benjamin Winjum (OARC)
Two of the sessions were recorded and are available on the OARC YouTube channel.
Digital Innovation
CESMII Member Meeting shows maturing Smart Manufacturing community
CESMII, a national R&D initiative under OARC, held its annual member meeting November 6-7, 2024, at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Knoxville, TN. The event gathered 250 attendees from across industry, non-profits, government, and academia to hear presentations, forge collaborations, and engage in Smart Manufacturing discussions.
The member meeting was a demonstration of CESMII’s maturation as an organization. CESMII recently entered the second phase of its development thanks to a $31M, 5-year extension award from the Department of Energy (DOE) and $30M of in-kind contributions from CESMII members. CESMII aims to improve manufacturing performance and energy productivity by accelerating the adoption of Smart Manufacturing. Its technical focus includes integration of advanced sensors, data analytics, machine learning and AI, advanced process control, and platform interoperability technologies.
In this next stage of its advancement, CESMII’s goal is to scale and deploy Smart Manufacturing technologies and education through standards-based interoperability specifications, new stackable Smart Manufacturing micro-credentials and associated instructional modules for upskilling the workforce, and a market-facing entity to achieve financial sustainability for the organization. CESMII will continue its Smart Manufacturing research and development efforts supported by federal and state funding that augment the DOE renewal.
Disabilities and Computing Program consults on accessible journal editing practices
OARC’s Disabilities and Computing Program (DCP) has supported the Disability Law Journal at UCLA (DLJ) to make its editing and publishing workflows more accessible to those with disabilities.
Representatives from the journal turned to the DCP for help collaborating with a blind scholar whose work they would be publishing. DCP experts met with the scholar to understand their assistive technology and software preferences, after which they developed training on digital documents accessibility aligned with the scholar’s needs. The DCP then trained journal staff and students on digital accessibility, with a focus on accessible collaborative document authoring and reviewing in Microsoft Word.
The DLJ implemented the accessibility best practices recommended by the DCP to successfully publish the article in collaboration with the blind scholar. They plan to conduct annual training with the DCP to ensure accessible collaborations with people with disabilities.
Collaboration expands digital access to Fowler museum
OARC’s GIS and Visualization group has partnered with the Fowler Museum to increase digital access to their collections. In support of the museum’s “Engaging Lived Religion in the 21st-Century Museum” initiative, funded by the Lilly Foundation, and in collaboration with Amy Landau, the Fowler’s Director of Education and Interpretation, the group has contributed its expertise in mapping, digital exhibitions, virtual tours, and 3D scanning to the project.
Outcomes of this collaboration include:
- Vital Matters: custom digital platform representing different perspectives on devotional works at the Fowler Museum—objects that arouse devotion, awe, and serenity; mediate relationships between human and spiritual realms; and are of vital importance to the cultural heritage of individuals and communities.
- The Art of Africa and the African Diaspora project: StoryMaps based on Fowler exhibitions.
- Visual and Sonic Landscapes of Muslims in Los Angeles: a custom website with a database of oral history interviews and a map display of Muslim sites across Los Angeles.
- Annotated virtual tours of Fowler exhibitions and five annotated 3D object models and their associated video content libraries.
- A BruinLearn module on Mexican Trees of Life and Death created along with the Digital Library Program.
- Redesign of the Fowler Educational web pages to better showcase the museum’s new digital resources.
Courses
Courses taught by OARC instructors
- DH101: Introduction to Digital Humanities, Digital Humanities (Ryan Horne)
- DH131: Social Justice and GIS, Digital Humanities (Ryan Horne)
- DH140: Coding for Humanities, Digital Humanities (Ben Winjum)
- DH150: Machine Learning for Humanists, Digital Humanities (Ben Winjum)
- DH150: Social Justice and Network Analysis, Digital Humanities (Ryan Horne)
- DH150: Digital Curation, Digital Humanities (Francesca Albrezzi)
- ENGR170: Project-Based Technology Bootcamp for Social Impact (Davida Johnson and Jim Davis)