2006 ORION Leadership Award Winner

Shared Hierarchical Academic Research Computing Network - SHARCNET

SHARCNET Scientific Director Dr. Hugh Couchman as he accepts the ORION Leadership Award at the 2006 award presentations in Toronto June 5, 2006.



Shared Hierarchical Academic Research Computing Network - SHARCNET SHARCNET (Shared Hierarchical Academic Research Computing Network) is a consortium of academic and research organizations that provides Ontario with one of world’s most powerful supercomputing resources. Structured as a cluster of clusters across South Central Ontario, SHARCNET enables world-class computational research by accelerating the production of research results, attracting and retaining the best students and researchers by providing cutting-edge computational expertise, and by linking academic researchers to corporate partners in search of new business opportunities.

The ORION network, Ontario’s leading-edge research and education telecommunications network, provides SHARCNET with the high-bandwidth, point-to-point connections that allow the seamless integration of SHARCNET’s distributed processors to efficiently leverage computer resources that are separated by hundreds of kilometres.

Ontario researchers are using this massive power to advance their work in multiple disciplines – from modeling the movement of pollution and creating more efficient electronics, to achieving greater understanding of the outbreak of disease like SARS. SHARCNET is a significant addition to Ontario’s basic research infrastructure and Canada’s knowledge-based economy.

With four primary resource centers located at the Universities of Western Ontario, Guelph, McMaster and Waterloo, SHARCNET joins researchers at 16 leading academic institutions including the Universities of Western Ontario, Guelph, McMaster, Wilfrid Laurier, Windsor, Waterloo, Brock, York, Laurentian, Trent, Lakehead, Ontario Institute of Technology, Fanshawe and Sheridan Colleges, and most recently Perimeter Institute and the Ontario College of Art and Design.

Under the leadership of scientific director and renowned astrophysicist Dr. Hugh Couchman of McMaster University, SHARCNET’s vision is to establish a world-leading, multi-university and college interdisciplinary institute enabling forefront computational research though shared resources.

SHARCNET is already transforming the way researchers access and use high-performance computing, and will form the core of future collaboration and visualization facilities among the member institutions creating a virtual research infrastructure.

For more information on SHARCNET, visit their Web site at www.sharcnet.ca.


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