CyberBridges: a model collaboration infrastructure for e-science

The Center for Internet Augmented Research and Assessment (CIARA) NSF CI-TEAM demonstration project "CyberBridges" is a new model for creating a new generation of scientists and engineers who are capable of fully integrating Grid into the whole educational, professional, and creative process of their respective disciplines. CyberBridges augments graduate student education to include a foundation of understanding in high Grid Infrastructure and High Performance Computing, and bridges the divide between the information technology community and diverse science/engineering disciplines. CyberBridges is increasing the rate of discovery for science/engineering faculty by empowering them with cyberinfrastructure, foster inter-disciplinary research collaboration, improve minority graduate education, and institutionalize this change process. We demonstrate the effectiveness of CyberBridges by providing four case studies with graduate students of Physics, Bioinformatics, Chemistry, and Biomedical Engineering. We are now proposing extending the outreach of CyberBridges for international research collaborations with China and Brazil through Global CyberBridges.