C² the P² Chicagoland Computational Traineeship
An education-focused program to train physics and computer science students in computational tools for particle physics.
Northern Illinois University (NIU) and the University of Illinois Chicago (UIC), in partnership with Argonne and Fermilab, administer C² the P², a two-year computational traineeship in high energy physics. Students complete their core graduate curricula while taking dedicated computational physics courses, participating in a monthly seminar series, annual retreats, and gaining hands-on experience via lab collaborations. The program offers a tuition waiver, competitive stipend, and travel support to enable immersive training in computational HEP.
Program Features and Structure
- Joint computational physics courses taught by UIC, NIU, and laboratory scientists
- Mandatory project management training to promote reproducible research
- Monthly C² the P² seminars featuring fellows, faculty, and guest speakers
- Biannual retreats for project presentations and networking
- Workshops at the Argonne Leadership Computing Facility and other labs
- Financial support covering tuition remission, stipend, and travel
- Research integration in areas like hardware-software co-design, collaborative software infrastructure, HPC/ML applications
Current Members
- Jahred Adelman — (NIU Physics Faculty)
- Amy J. Byrnes — C² the P² Fellow
- Rick Cavanaugh — (UIC Physics Faculty)
- Maisy Dunlavy - C² the P² Fellow
- Sreten Kljaic — C² the P² Fellow
- Wesley Kwiecinski — C² the P² Fellow
- Zhiling Lan — (UIC Computer Science Faculty)
- Kim Meagher - C² the P² Fellow
- Akshar Patel - C² the P² Fellow
- Michael E. Papka — (UIC/Argonne) — (UIC Computer Science Faculty)
Funding
This work is supported by the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Science, High Energy Physics (HEP) program, via sub-award from Northern Illinois University.