Courses

Last Updated: February 14, 2025

Every semester, Texas A&M High Performance Research Computing (HPRC) offers short courses covering a range of topics for beginning, intermediate, and advanced researchers. Courses taught early in the semester on the clusters and schedulers form the basis for using the respective clusters effectively. We also offer short "primer" classes taught throughout the semester to brush up on basics quickly. All courses will be delivered in an interactive style through a live login session. In general, slides and other supplemental materials are available on each course page.

Registration is required for each primer or short course. Attendees will need to use their own device. Workstations are not provided. The typical short course runs for 2.5 hours, unless otherwise noted. Each primer runs for 1 hour.

Most courses will require one of two accounts:

In-class short courses have a seating limit of about 45 students.

For our course offerings from previous semesters, please consult this page.

Short Course List for Spring 2025

ACES: Software for AI on HPC

Instructor(s): Dr. Zhenhua He and Richard Lawrence

Time: Tuesday, February 18, 2025 10:00AM-12:30PM CT

Location: Online using Zoom

Description: This short course will provide an overview of the resources available on the ACES cluster to support AI workflows and applications. We will introduce a wide range of tools useful for management of software, data, and jobs. Later classes taught by HPRC will expand on individual topics.

Prerequisite(s): Active ACCESS ID, basic Linux/Unix skills

View Details Remote Attendee Registration

ACES: AI TechLab in Jupyter Notebooks

Instructor(s): Dr. Zhenhua He

Time: Tuesday, February 18, 2025 — 1:30PM-4:00PM CT

Location: Online using Zoom

Description: This technology lab contains a set of sessions to help a new user start an AI project on the ACES cluster, a composable accelerator testbed at Texas A&M University.

Prerequisite(s): Current ACCESS ID, basic Python skills

View Details Remote Attendee Registration

Fundamentals of R Programming

Instructor(s): Dr. Wesley Brashear

Time: Friday, February 21, 2024 10:00AM-4:00PM CT (with a one hour lunch break)

Location: Blocker 220

Description: This course is an introduction to the R programming language and covers the fundamental concepts needed to operate in the R environment. Students are not required to have any prior experience with R.

Prerequisite(s): Active HPRC account

View Details In-Person Attendee Registration

Quantum Mechanics Simulations of Spectra: IR, Raman, UV-Vis, Fluorescence, NMR

Instructor(s): Dr. James Mao

Time: Friday, February 28, 2024 10:00AM-12:30PM CT

Location: Blocker 220

Description: This short course will provide an introduction to simulating spectra using quantum mechanics calculations. By the end of the course, attendees will be equipped with the skills to simulate and interpret IR, Raman, UV-Vis, and NMR spectra.

Prerequisite(s): Active HPRC account, Linux/Unix skills

View Details In-Person Attendee Registration

Setting Up Molecular Dynamics Simulations

Instructor(s): Dr. James Mao

Time: Friday, February 28, 2024 1:30PM-4:00PM CT

Location: Blocker 220

Description: This short course provides a step-by-step guide to setting up molecular dynamics (MD) simulations. The course will also cover performing production MD simulations using various software available on the HPRC cluster.

Prerequisite(s): Active HPRC account, active CHARMM-GUI account, basic Linux/Unix skills

View Details In-Person Attendee Registration

ACES: AI/ML TechLab on Intel PVC GPUs

Instructor(s): Dr. Zhenhua He

Time: Tuesday, March 4, 2025 — 10:00PM-12:30PM CT

Location: online using Zoom

Description: This course provides an overview of Intel PVC GPUs, guidance on accessing these GPUs on the ACES cluster at Texas A&M High Performance Research Computing, and demonstrations of running AI/ML models with the GPUs using PyTorch and Tensorflow.

Prerequisite(s): Current ACCESS ID; basic Linux/Unix skills; basic understanding of machine learning concepts, neural networks, and deep learning; familiarity with deep learning frameworks TensorFlow and/or PyTorch

View Details Remote Attendee Registration

ACES: Intro to the Grace Hopper Superchip

Instructor(s): James Chegwidden

Time: Tuesday, March 4, 2025 — 1:30PM-2:30PM CT

Location: online using Zoom

Description: In this short-course, we’ll explore the technical aspects of the Grace Hopper Superchip, its advantages, challenges, and architectural design. The benchmarks conducted by HPRC researchers will be presented, highlighting the Grace Hopper system's performance across a variety of HPC workloads.

Prerequisite(s): Current ACCESS ID;

View Details Remote Attendee Registration

Primer: Introduction to FASTER and ACES: Composable Clusters

Instructor(s): Aakashdeep Sil

Time: Friday, March 7, 2025 10:00AM-11:00PM CT

Location: Online using Zoom

Description: An introduction to the composable clusters FASTER and ACES, covering a variety of topics relevant to computing that are demonstrated through a live login session.

Prerequisite(s): Active ACCESS ID, basic Linux skills

View Details Remote Attendee Registration

Primer: Using the Slurm Scheduler

Instructor(s): Gabriel Floreslovo

Time: Friday, March 7, 2025 1:30PM-2:30PM CT

Location: Online using Zoom

Description: This primer covers various job scheduling approaches using the Slurm Workload Manager on HPRC clusters.

Prerequisite(s): Active ACCESS ID, basic Linux skills

View Details Remote Attendee Registration

ACES: AI/ML TechLab on Graphcore IPUs

Instructor(s): Dr. Zhenhua He

Time: Tuesday, March 18, 2025 — 10:00AM-12:30PM CT

Location: Online using Zoom

Description: This short course introduces researchers to Graphcore Intelligence Processing Units (IPUs) on the ACES cluster, a composable accelerator testbed. The instructor will demonstrate the execution of models from different frameworks on the IPU system, and participants will gain practical experience in converting TensorFlow and PyTorch code into IPU code through hands-on exercises.

Prerequisite(s): Current ACCESS ID; basic Linux/Unix skills; basic understanding of machine learning concepts, neural networks, and deep learning; familiarity with deep learning frameworks TensorFlow and/or PyTorch

View Details Remote Attendee Registration

ACES: Introduction to Julia

Instructor(s): Dr. Wes Brashear

Time: Tuesday, March 18, 2025 — 1:30PM-4:00PM CT

Location: online using Zoom

Description: Covers basic topics in numerical computation and scientific programming using the Julia programming language. Topics include basic language elements and concepts, programming best practice, and relevant open source tools. This is a basic to intermediate level course.

Prerequisite(s): Current ACCESS ID

View Details Remote Attendee Registration

RNA-seq and Differential Expression

Instructor(s): Dr. Wesley Brashear

Time: Friday, March 21, 2025 — 10:00AM-12:30PM CT

Location: Blocker 220

Description: Covers a brief introduction to RNA-seq technology, NGS QC, and differential expression analysis/data visualization.

Prerequisite(s): Active HPRC account, basic Linux/Unix skills, and basic familiarity with NGS techniques/terminology

View Details In-Person Attendee Registration

ACES: Introduction to Data Science in R

Instructor(s): Dr. Wesley Brashear

Time: Tuesday, March 25, 2025 — 10:00AM-4:00PM CT (with a one hour lunch break)

Location: Online using Zoom

Description: This course is an introduction to the R programming language and covers the fundamental concepts needed to operate in the R environment. Students are not required to have any prior experience with R.

Prerequisite(s): Current ACCESS ID, basic Linux/Unix skills

View Details Remote Attendee Registration

Data Science Meets Geoscience: a Case Study in Rock Weathering Calculations

Instructor(s): Shihan Li and Xiying Sun

Time: Friday, March 28, 2025 — 10:00AM-12:30PM CT

Location: Blocker 220 and online via Zoom

Description: This short course aims to provide an intuitive understanding of data science and its applications in geoscience and carbon cycle research

Prerequisite(s): Active ACCESS ID; some R programming experience is recommended

View Details In-Person Attendee Registration

AlphaFold Protein Structure Prediction

Instructor(s): Dr. Michael Dickens

Time: Friday, March 28, 2025 — 1:30PM-4:00PM CT

Location: Blocker 220

Description: This course provides an introduction to using AlphaFold for protein structure prediction on Grace.

Prerequisite(s): Active HPRC account, basic Linux/Unix skills

View Details In-Person Attendee Registration