Undergraduate Computational Engineering and Sciences Award Program

About the UCES Award

Created to promote and enhance undergraduate education in computational engineering and science (CES), the Undergraduate Computational Engineering and Sciences (UCES) award program is in support of recruitment for the Department of Energy Computational Science Graduate Fellowship Program and encourages further development of innovative educational resources and programs; recognizes the achievements of CES educators; and disseminates educational material and ideas to the broad scientific and engineering undergraduate community.  The UCES Awards Program is funded by the Department of Energy and administered by the Krell Institute.

Read about past award winners:

• 2005
• 2006
• 2007

Computational Engineering and Science

Computational engineering and science (CES) involves the use of contemporary computer technology to advance the state of knowledge in a particular scientific or engineering discipline. Computational science emphasizes the use of the computer as an essential tool to solve problems.  Representative projects in CES include computer predictions of environmental changes, structural responses to earthquakes, multidimensional international monetary fluctuations, and data mining of biological databases.  Computational science should not be confused with computer science which focuses on the hardware and software aspects of the computer itself.

Awards consist of the following:

• A cash prize
• An award certificate
• Travel expenses to attend the award luncheon at the prestigious Supercomputing (SC) conference held each November

Eligibility

Eligibility for the awards is limited to people working within the United States at the time of proposal submission.  It is anticipated that candidates for the awards will primarily be faculty members at colleges and universities.  Applications will be also accepted from undergraduate and graduate students and non-academic computational scientists.

Proposal Guidelines

A proposal submission typically includes new or existing computational science materials, methods, and modules for demonstrating computational science in the classroom.  Its scope could be as small as the illustration of a single concept, or as large as an entire course.  Proposals are solicited for CES resources (e.g., textbooks, projects, data sets) or programs (e.g., courses, learning modules, degree options).

Selection Criteria

A judging committee of faculty members involved in computational engineering and science evaluates the proposals using the following criteria:

• focus on computational engineering and science
• innovation
• educational impact
• breadth of appeal
• quality of the submitted material
  

Dissemination

A primary goal of the UCES Award Program is to make CES education material available to the undergraduate engineering and science community.  Winning projects will be announced on the UCES web page along with links to their CES resources available electronically.  Instructions on how to obtain any other material (e.g., textbooks, CDs, DVDs) will be provided.