Educational Programs

The goals of the education programs described below are not only to produce more scientists and engineers, but also to assure that nonscientists are equipped to deal with the scientific and technical issues facing our country. Given the importance of issues such as health care and the environment, a well-informed and technically literate citizenry is the best guarantee for a prosperous future.

We offer summer, fall, and spring positions for students. We also encourage faculty to spend a few months at Argonne through the Faculty Participant program.

• Student Opportunities
  
  The Mathematics and Computer Science (MCS) Division at Argonne National Laboratory, in conjunction with Argonne's Division of Educational Programs, conducts programs for undergraduate and graduate students majoring in computer science or a related discipline. Every country’s most precious resource is its young people. Students learn that the essence of science is not looking up answers or carrying out recipe-style programming assignments,  but solving problems that have never been solved before.  For this reason, the National Science Foundation and the Department of Energy sponsor student research opportunities at colleges, universities, and national laboratories.
  
  The training of students to understand fundamental concepts of nature and to solve difficult problems is one of basic science’s main contributions to society. For example, Dr. Gibbons recently made these remarks about his graduate studies: "Graduate school was a good place to learn how to define and solve problems, whether theoretical or experimental. I didn’t realize it until later, but the skills and sensitivities I developed in graduate school — learning how to ask questions and dig for the answers, understanding which variables are important and which you can safely ignore, the ‘sense of things’ you gain in hard science — are relevant not only for basic research, but also for generic problem solving."
  

• Givens Associates
  
  The Mathematics and Computer Science (MCS) Division at Argonne National Laboratory is developing innovative techniques in numerical computing and computational mathematics. The Givens Associate positions are intended to encourage graduate students who are beginning careers in numerical analysis or computational mathematics. Candidates must be in an accredited Ph.D. program in mathematics, applied mathematics, computer science, or a related field at a U.S. university. Givens Associates will work actively with MCS scientists designing, analyzing, and implementing numerical and visualization methods.
  
  

• W.J. Cody Associates
  
  Named for one of the pioneers in elementary functions and numerical software libraries, the W. J. Cody Associates program provides an opportunity for graduate students to work at the forefront of computing. Candidates must be in an accredited Ph.D. program in computer science, computer engineering, or a related field at a U.S. university. Cody Associates will assist researchers in Argonne's Mathematics and Computer Science Division in designing, analyzing, and implementing software solutions for scientific computing at extreme scale.
  
  

• J. H. Wilkinson Fellowship
  
  The J. H. Wilkinson Fellowship in Scientific Computing was created in 1988 in memory of Dr. James Hardy Wilkinson, F.R.S., who had a close association with the Mathematics and Computer Science Division as a consultant and guiding spirit for the EISPACK and LINPACK projects. The Wilkinson Fellowship is intended to encourage young scientists actively engaged in state-of-the-art research in scientific computing.
  
  

• J. H. Wilkinson Prize
  
  In honor of the outstanding contributions of Dr. James Hardy Wilkinson to the field of numerical software, Argonne National Laboratory, the National Physical Laboratory, and the Numerical Algorithms Group award a numerical software prize.
  
  

• Faculty Opportunities
  
  The Mathematics and Computer Science (MCS) Division at Argonne National Laboratory, in conjunction with Argonne's Division of Educational Programs, conducts programs for faculty members of accredited U. S. colleges and universities. Researchers exploring the frontiers of knowledge carry their excitement into the classroom to motivate and inspire students.  Further, research opportunities and experiences improve the quality of undergraduate education faculty members provide.