News & Events

November 3, 2009

ExxonMobil Awards Grant to Computer Science

ExxonMobil has awarded a $35,000 grant to the College of Charleston's Department of Computer Science to help in the development of a system that will help scientists to archive and share geological data.

The proposed work will be done by College of Charleston Visiting Assistant Professor Jim Bowring and selected students as part of CIRDLES (Cyber Infrastructure Research and Development Lab for Earth Science).

"This ExxonMobil grant demonstrates the willingness of Computer Science faculty to engage with industrial partners in support of high-impact research that involves collaboration with other universities and provides research opportunities for undergraduates, including SCAMP students," says Bowring. "This grant supports an ongoing collaboration between CIRDLES and Earth Sciences research at MIT, the University of Kansas and the University of Arizona."

With this grant, Bowring and his students will be able to extend development of their powerful and rigorous system for processing uranium-lead geochronological data to include data acquired with laser-ablation mass spectrometry.  Bowring's NSF-funded system is the first to provide automated support with interactive visualizations for end-to-end data processing, analysis, archiving, retrieval and compilation that supports geochemists studying the age of the earth.