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Virginia Tech/Halifax County outreach office awarded
$1.2 million for research in energy and the environment
The Virginia Tobacco Indemnification and
Community
Revitalization Commission has awarded a $1.2 million grant to Virginia
Tech Outreach and International Affairs
www.outreach.vt.edu
The grant funds creation of a new regional program, the Modeling and
Simulation Center of Excellence, in southern Virginia at Riverstone
Technology Park, a 60,000-square-foot facility on 200 acres of rural
countryside in Halifax County, Virginia.
This program is unique because of the high level of corporate
involvement from its inception and the goal of creating jobs in
Southside Virginia.
The center, which will be led by Halifax Outreach Executive Director
Carole Cameron Inge, will include as many as seven environmental and
energy experts in the beginning stages of the center's operations.
Numerous corporate partners have also committed resources and shown
interest in the developing project.
The Modeling and Simulation Center of Excellence will target projects
that use data collected in the energy and environmental fields-air,
water, and land. Data will be collected by sensors or other instruments
and then exported over the broadband network in real time or
asynchronously for computational processing by System X
www.arc.vt.edu/arc/SystemX/SystemX-About.php, the supercomputer at
Virginia Tech. Faculty and students at Virginia Tech are expected to be
involved in designing the projects, collecting the data in the field,
and helping process and analyze the information. The resulting product
will be used for later visualization in an aggregated manner at
Riverstone or wherever stakeholders are located.
Plans for the center feature a new modeling, simulation, and analysis
facility; including a flexible advanced visualization system that can
be configured into a virtual environment of one, two, or three walls in
size and aspect. This advanced technology has the capability to create
a reconfigurable visualization system for viewing, collaborating, and
presenting complex technical information on flat vertical displays that
create an immersive theatre environment. The result is the sensation of
being immersed in a visual room with surround sound, creating a virtual
environment.
The new center can serve and support the numerous private engineering
firms within a 150-mile radius of Riverstone in addition to state and
federal agencies such as the Department of Environmental Quality, the
U.S. Department of the Interior, the Environmental Protection Agency,
the Department of Energy, and other land management and regulatory
agencies. New corporate partners bring an international focus to the
program, with many projects already underway in modeling and simulation
in developing countries such as Belize and Africa.
With annual salaries in modeling and simulation averaging from $55,000
to $85,000, the center will support efforts by Old Dominion University
and nearby community colleges to develop curricula to support the
center's work. Two corporate partners say they are now considering
Riverstone as a business location because the Modeling and Simulation
Center of Excellence would bring significant e-learning experience.
There is an expectation that online learning, software, and textbooks
will be co-developed with the new center as it relates to modeling and
simulation, a growing and emerging research field.
President John Cavan of Southside Virginia Community College has
committed to work on the academic side of the project. "I am excited
about the opportunities for enhancing our course offerings through
increased economic development in the region," he said.
The Ward Burton Wildlife Foundation and the Conservation Management
Institute
www.cmiweb.org/, an institute within the College of Natural
Resources (http://www.cnr.vt.edu/)
at Virginia Tech, were two of the
early program partners. In a market research study, the Southside
Business Technology Center identified the Virginia Modeling, Analysis,
and Simulation Center of Old Dominion University as a primary partner
for the new outreach venture.
Six months ago, Virginia Tech and Virginia Modeling, Analysis, and
Simulation Center leadership signed a cooperative agreement to enable
the two organizations to collaborate on projects and complement their
efforts in the modeling and simulation arena.
The Virginia Modeling, Analysis, and Simulation Center focuses on the
homeland security, medical, and transportation areas, while the
Virginia Tech outreach program focuses on energy and the environment.
The two organizations provide a holistic approach to one of the fastest
growing areas in technology, modeling, and simulation.
The Halifax County-based Virginia Tech outreach program began under
Inge following a grant from the local community less than three years
ago. Projects have included managing the NASA Center for Distance
Learning in Hampton Roads, creating a Regional Technology Leadership
Task Force, and developing a program with Nortel Networks called Nortel
LearnIT. The outreach office also created local partnerships with the
Halifax Industrial Development Authority, Halifax Board of Supervisors,
the Halifax Economic Development Commission, Old Dominion Electric
Cooperative, the Southern Virginia Higher Education Center, area
community colleges, and other groups to identify specific technology
areas and to sharpen the focus for Riverstone. The task force and its
partners have concentrated on e-learning, economic gardening (growing
business from local talent), last-mile networks, data hosting and
storage, and now modeling and simulation.