Proposals

Abstract

We are requesting funds for six new stand-alone data analysis computers for the Molecular Analysis Facility (MAF). The MAF is an instrumentation facility that provides access and training on analytical instrumentation for materials characterization. We house and maintain equipment that would be otherwise prohibitively expensive for individual research labs to purchase independently. The MAF primarily serves UW academic users as well as users from outside academic institutions, non-profit institutions, and private industry. The UW user base spans a wide range of departments from several colleges across UW including the College of Arts & Sciences, College of Engineering, College of the Environment, and the School of Medicine. After users collect data on the instrumentation in the MAF, they need to analyze it. In many cases, data analysis requires specialized software packages that require expensive licenses that would not be feasible for individual users to purchase. The MAF has already purchased these software licenses and makes them freely available to our users on stand-alone data analysis computers. These computers were previously funded by the STF (proposal 2016(89)) and have been well-utilized by 450+ unique users since their installation in the MAF in 2016. Unfortunately, these computers are beginning to show their age. They are running on older operating systems that will soon not receive critical security updates. Since the original proposal, we have added analysis capabilities in the MAF that are more resource intensive. We need new computers to accommodate these additional software packages and our larger user base.

Access

Appointments will not be mandatory, but as a courtesy to other users, we will encourage users to reserve time slots for these computers using the dedicated analysis computer calendars in our CORAL system. Users who make a reservation will receive priority use of the computer during their reserved time.