LSU STE||AR Group Rejoins Google Summer of Code (GSoC) in 2021

The LSU STE||AR Group has once again been selected as one of the GSoC mentor organizations for 2021. An implicit endorsement of the high level of research and mentorship LSU has to offer, the program pays students to work on open-source projects between the months of June and August with scientists in the LSU Center of Computation &Technology (CCT). This will be the STE||AR Group’s seventh summer as a participant in GSoC.

Each summer, students travel all over the world to be matched with mentors and various open-source software development projects. Since its inception in 2005, Google Summer of Code (GSoC) has so far connected more than 15,000 students, 109 countries, and 686 different organizations.

Over the years, a total of 26 students have joined the LSU STE||AR Group for GSoC “to help push the bar on what’s possible,” according to the group’s website. The group has 15 members and is led by Hartmut Kaiser, a CCT senior research scientist and adjunct assistant professor in the LSU Division of Electrical & Computer Engineering. Kaiser is one of the world’s leading developers of the C++ programming language and a featured Collaborative Champion in the latest issue of LSU Research magazine.

“Our group benefits greatly from the cutting-edge work the students do as part of Google Summer of Code,” said Kaiser. “Our involvement with the program is a confirmation of the importance our work has for the community all around the world, and we’re very happy to be chosen by Google year after year to mentor several students.

The STE||AR Group organizer for GSoC is Patrick Diehl, a CCT/LSU research scientist with a focus on computational engineering and high-performance computing. This is the third summer he’s been the point of contact for the program at LSU.

“Google Summer of Code is an excellent opportunity to flip bits instead of burgers during the summer,” Diehl said. “Students gain experience in code development and get to interact with experienced developers.”

Much of the STE||AR Group’s work is focused on parallelism, which is the reason the research group’s name is written a little funny (STE||AR as opposed to STELLAR, an acronym for System Technology, Emergent Parallelism, and Algorithm Research). Parallelism is a way to divvy up tasks between multiple computers, or multiple threads in the same computer, to make the overall work go faster—a key to scalability. Complex algorithms control exactly how the work is split up, with nothing getting lost or corrupted along the way. Without parallelism, the advanced graphics in most video games would not be possible to render before you, the hero, would already have leapt into your next adventure.

Google pays GSoC students directly for a 10-week period from June through August. However, students selected to work with the STE||AR Group are also eligible for an additional four weeks of funding through CCT/LSU. This extended period benefits both students and mentors as collaborations can continue through the middle of September. Students who are interested in participating in GSoC can learn more about the program on GSoC’s official website. As a mentor organization, the STE||AR Group provides a list of suggested topics for students to work on, but students can also write a proposal for any topic in which they are interested. Past experiences show that students who engage with the group on IRC (#ste||ar on freenode) or via the group’s mailing list hpx-users@stellar-group.org have a better chance of having their proposals accepted and a better understanding of the projects’ scope. As an additional resource, students are invited to read through these hints for successful proposals.