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The American Museum of Natural History Program in Scientific Computation utilizes new computing paradigms to address problems of broad application in the sciences and other disciplines. Research in astrophysics and genomics, among other fields, generates data sets of increasingly immense size and complexity, which requires supercomputing resources. Museum scientists are at the forefront of cutting-edge approaches in three areas: (1) commodity cluster computing, (2) special purpose hardware computing, and (3) scientific visualization. The program is driven by scientific research; however, consistent with the Museum's mission, it fuels extensive educational and outreach programs.

The museum's scientific computation facilities are used intensively for research in comparative genomics, evolutionary biology, astrophysics, and scientific visualization. Museum scientists have developed algorithms and code that are used by researchers around the world.

Educational outreach extends to students of all ages. For groups of middle school students, programs offer hands-on opportunities to construct a supercomputing clusters and to test their power on real-world problems. Educational outreach for college students includes a planned computational science training and seminar series, based on a successful program at City University in New York.