Cyberinfrastructure essential to 21st century advances in science and engineering education & research

The broad infrastructure considered necessary to capitalize on spectacular advances in information technology has been termed cyberinfrastructure. Cyberinfrastructure integrates hardware for computing, data and networks, digitally-enabled sensors, observatories and experimental facilities; and an interoperable suite of software and middleware services and tools. Scientists and engineers need access to new information technology capabilities; such as circulated wired and wireless observing network complexes; sophisticated simulation tools that permits exploration of phenomena which can never be pragmatic or replicated by experiment. Computation offers new models of performance and modes of scientific discovery that deeply extend the limited choice of models that can be shaped with mathematics alone, for example, chaotic behavior. Smaller amount of researchers working at the frontiers of knowledge can carry out their work without cyberinfrastructure of one form or another. While hardware performance has been exponentially - with gate density doubling every 18 months; storage capacity every 12 months; and network capacity every 9 months - it has become clear that more and more capable hardware is not the only prerequisite for computation-enabled discovery. This Plenary Talk would concentrate; on Cyberinfrastructure essential to 21^st century advances in science and engineering education and researches.