Resources

UT Austin

The University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin) operates numerous research core facilities that house specialized scientific instrumentation accessible to researchers across campus with the goal of providing the best tools and technical support for achieving project objectives. Additionally, other facilities that support research within the university’s colleges and research units offer advanced technical and consulting services, providing essential support services to research teams in the form of training, data collection, and analysis. The most relevant facilities are highlighted below.

The mission of Texas Materials Institute (TMI) is to provide faculty and students at UT Austin with the instrumentation and associated infrastructure needed for state-of-the-art materials research. To fulfill this mission, TMI manages a variety of core central facilities—all supported by a Ph.D.-level facility manager—including thin film and nano/micro fabrication, x-ray scattering, scanning, transmission electron, and atomic force microscopy, surface and bulk spectroscopy, thermal analysis, and electronic and optoelectronic testing.

The Microscopy and Imaging Facility provides extensive microscopy equipment and services for ultra-structural analysis of many sample types. The facility offers assisted use and training on its instrumentation as well as consultations on microscopy- and spectroscopy-related research. The facility includes equipment for ellipsometry, microtomy and cryogenic sample preparation, elemental analysis, immunogold labeling, freeze-substitution, histology and immunohistochemistry. Also available are computers with specialized software to assist with image processing (e.g., deconvolution, particle counting, 3D reconstruction). This facility, a Nikon Center of Excellence, includes a suite of state-of-the-art instrumentation, the ability to beta-test novel technologies to support cutting-edge research efforts, and full service and support from Nikon.

The Center for Dynamics and Control of Materials (CDCM) hosts over 3,000 square feet of lab space in the state-of-the-art EER building (Figure 1) at UT Austin. The facility provides several advanced tools for materials synthesis and characterization, supporting research on nanocomposite materials. CDCM contains instrumentation for rheometry, chemical synthesis, and optical characterization (e.g., dynamic light scattering).

The McKetta Department of Chemical Engineering operates a machine shop for designing, fabricating, machining, and repairing customized equipment. The shop is staffed with a full-time machinist who provides design consulting and fabrication services.

The Center for Mechanics of Solids, Structures, and Materials operates the Fracture Mechanics Laboratory for studying fracture, as well as the Mechanics of Solids and Materials Laboratory for characterizing the mechanical properties of solids and materials. 

The Environmental and Water Resources Engineering (EWRE) Analytical Service Center, directed by Lynn Katz, offers support for the analysis of bulk constituents and trace contaminants within water, soil, and air matrices. This facility operates on a user fee basis and is open for training and use. The center is supervised by a Ph.D. level analytical chemist (or equivalent). In addition, an endowment for the center provides partial support for equipment maintenance and replacement. A wide range of analytical instrumentation is available for sample preparation and determination of the concentrations of all components within the MFP, as well as measuring physical and chemical properties of particles.

The Department of Geological Sciences resources include labs for geochemistry, mass spectrometry, thermo- and geochronology, and mineral physics, a morphodynamics lab, and a high-resolution X-ray computed tomography facility (UTCT). UTCT offers facilities for nondestructive visualization of features in the interior of opaque solid objects and for obtaining digital information on their 3D geometries and properties.

The College of Natural Sciences Macromolecular Crystallography Facility (Center for Biomedical Research Support) provides instrumentation for determining the three- dimensional structures of macromolecules using X-ray diffraction. Macromolecular samples may be submitted to the facility for crystallization experiments, and training and/or assistance with these instruments are available for interested users. The facility also offers time-programmed imaging of a crystallization plate on multiple days following the plate set-up. 

The Department of Chemistry's X-ray Diffraction Lab is a multi-functional facility that services the needs of the UT-Austin scientific community. The X-ray lab has a variety of equipment for both single crystal and powder X-ray diffraction experiments. Samples may be submitted to facility staff for analysis, and training is also available for individual users to run their own samples.

The Department of Chemistry's Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Facility provides instrument access and support to students and researchers from any department on campus. Spectrometers are available for hands-on access following training by facility staff. The lab offers support for a wide variety of NMR experiments including variable temperature, 2D, solid state, and diffusion experiments. The NMR facility is located in the Norman Hackerman Building (NHB), with eight spectrometers. All instruments are professionally maintained, and technical staff provide training for students. Instrument usage is billed according to instrument time, number of samples, and staff time. 

The Department of Chemistry's Mass Spectrometry Facility offers support for the analysis of a wide variety of analytes using mass spectrometry-based techniques. The lab houses instrumentation and offers expertise in multiple ionization techniques including ESI, APCI, EI, and CI, enabling investigation of a wide range of molecular structures.

The Center for Biomedical Research's Biological Mass Spectrometry Facility provides services, self-service equipment, and collaborative research for the detection, characterization, and quantification of proteins and other biomolecules (including proteins, peptides, oligosaccharides and oligonucleotides or their conjugates). It provides identification and quantitation of metabolites by LC-MS/MS and LC-MS, protein sample preparation for mass spectrometry analysis and subsequent identification by MALDI-TOF MS (peptide mass fingerprinting) or nanoflow LC-ESI tandem mass spectrometry (nano LC-MS/MS). The facility staff also provide assistance with data interpretation.

The Texas Advanced Computing Center (TACC) develops and deploys an integrated cyberinfrastructure of advanced computing resources to enhance the research and education activities of the faculty, staff, and students at UT Austin, in Texas, and across the US through its involvement in various state and national programs. Its infrastructure (Figure 2) includes high performance computing (HPC) systems, advanced scientific visualization systems, data servers and storage/archival systems, grid and cloud computing servers, IT systems, high-bandwidth networks, and a comprehensive software environment comprising applications, tools, libraries, databases, and grid software. 

• TACC’s main offices are located in the Research Office Complex (ROC) at the UT Austin J.J. Pickle Research Campus (PRC), nine miles northwest of the main UT campus. The ROC is approximately 90,000 square feet, with about 40,000 square feet allocated to TACC, including nearly 100 offices for staff and a workspace for students, as well as six conference rooms and two large training/seminar spaces. An attached annex completed in May 2016 provides 65 additional offices, five additional conference rooms, a new state-of-the art training facility (bringing the total to three), an auditorium, additional rack integration space for the datacenters, and an additional data visualization laboratory.TACC operates two data centers on the Pickle Research Campus (PRC). The ROC machine room consists of 15,000 square feet of air conditioned, raised floor space, capable of supporting up to 10 MW of IT load. The dedicated chilling/utility plant that serves the machine room can produce 3,750 tons of cooling via chilled water, and a one-million-gallon thermal storage tank reduces power costs and boosts efficiency. The plant has redundant chillers and can operate the datacenter for up to eight hours at full load with no chillers functioning, using just the stored chilled water. All power feeds to and from the plant and datacenter are underground. PRC itself has dual power feeds, approaching the campus from different directions that feed a redundant pair of 27 MW transformers. The data center is set up with In-Row Chillers (IRCs) in an enclosed hot aisle configuration, which brings chilled water next to each compute rack. A 400 KVA UPS covers critical storage systems with backup power. The machine room is monitored 24×7 by onsite TACC operations staff and UT facilities personnel. Two-factor card access-plus-pin systems control access to the datacenter. The machine room also includes several experimental alternative cooling systems, including several Green Revolution immersive cooling racks. In the Commons Building on PRC, TACC operates another machine room that provides 3,800 square feet of raised floor and a robust power and cooling infrastructure. TACC maintains a footprint in the UT Arlington datacenter in the Dallas metro area about 200 miles north of Austin for online data replication on the Corral system.
• TACC operates two data centers on the Pickle Research Campus (PRC). The ROC machine room consists of 15,000 square feet of air conditioned, raised floor space, capable of supporting up to 10 MW of IT load. The dedicated chilling/utility plant that serves the machine room can produce 3,750 tons of cooling via chilled water, and a one-million-gallon thermal storage tank reduces power costs and boosts efficiency. The plant has redundant chillers and can operate the datacenter for up to eight hours at full load with no chillers functioning, using just the stored chilled water. All power feeds to and from the plant and datacenter are underground. PRC itself has dual power feeds, approaching the campus from different directions that feed a redundant pair of 27 MW transformers. The data center is set up with In-Row Chillers (IRCs) in an enclosed hot aisle configuration, which brings chilled water next to each compute rack. A 400 KVA UPS covers critical storage systems with backup power. The machine room is monitored 24×7 by onsite TACC operations staff and UT facilities personnel. Two-factor card access-plus-pin systems control access to the datacenter. The machine room also includes several experimental alternative cooling systems, including several Green Revolution immersive cooling racks. In the Commons Building on PRC, TACC operates another machine room that provides 3,800 square feet of raised floor and a robust power and cooling infrastructure. TACC maintains a footprint in the UT Arlington datacenter in the Dallas metro area about 200 miles north of Austin for online data replication on the Corral system.
• M-WET’s research relies on the analysis and interpretation of tremendous amounts of data. To find meaning in this sea of information, researchers must first be able to organize, store, and share their data. Researchers can leverage the advances in high-speed, high-density data analysis and computing capabilities at TACC to bring clarity and structure to complex problems and highlight potentially interesting results in data sources too large for any team of people to explore by hand. With more than 100 petabytes of dedicated user storage and new systems designed specifically for data analysis and computations, TACC is a leader in the deployment and use of data intensive computing.

The Texas Data Repository (TDR) is a platform, built in the open-source Harvard Dataverse application, for publishing and archiving datasets and other data products created by faculty, staff and students at Texas higher education institutions. External collaborators of Texas university researchers are also granted permission to deposit data related to their collaborative projects into TDR free of charge for datasets smaller than a few terabytes.

Texas ScholarWorks (TSW) is the UT Austin digital repository established to provide open, online access to products of UT Austin to preserve these works for future generations. TSW is a campus institutional repository that holds digital works (pre-prints, post-prints, technical reports, presentations, and other items not usually submitted to peer-reviewed publications) and provides related services. TSW allows for archive of publications that include external collaborators.

Berkin Dortdivanlioglu Laboratory (The University of Texas at Austin) has ten modern desktop workstations, suitable for code and simulation development. The PI and his students have access to TACC for more demanding simulations. The Dortdivanlioglu group has 350 square feet of shared office space for graduate students on the 7th floor of the Ernest C. Cockrell Jr. (ECJ) Building at UT Austin.

Benny Freeman Laboratory (The University of Texas at Austin) has approximately 6,500 square feet of laboratory space in the EER building (cf. Figure 1). This includes 12 fume hoods and a variety of laboratory benches configured for our experimental needs related to polymer synthesis, membrane fabrication, and membrane characterization. The group has approximately 45 personal computers, about 20 of which are used by graduate students for their research. The remaining 25 are used for instrument control and data acquisition. Professor Freeman’s group has approximately 1,500 square feet of office space for graduate students, an administrative assistant, a director of operations, and a laboratory manager. We have access, by reservation, to three large conference rooms that seat over 30 people and 15 smaller conference rooms that seat 8-10 people. The conference rooms are equipped with whiteboards, state-of-the-art videoconferencing equipment, and A/V systems to facilitate interactive research meetings, project management, and collaboration.

Venkat Ganesan Laboratory (The University of Texas at Austin) A shared laboratory space houses the 32-node Beowulf computer cluster maintained for the exclusive use of Dr. Ganesan’s research group. Central computing facilities are available through TACC. The Ganesan group maintains office space of approximately 800 square feet in the state-of-the-art McKetta Building on the main campus of UT Austin.

Graeme Henkelman Laboratory (The University of Texas at Austin) research is computational, with a focus on atomic scale calculations to understand the function of materials related to energy applications and the design of new materials. The lab also develops computational algorithms and software towards those aims. Henkelman’s research group currently has 12 laptop computers, 4 desktop servers, and two dedicated clusters. Routine backups are done to two dedicated servers with 9.1 TB raid arrays and a Synology with a 44 TB disk array. Henkelman also has a yearly allocation of 3M node hours for the computational design of materials at TACC and a 20M node hour allocation on the DOE NERSC machines. The group has two large student offices that accommodate about 20 people and one faculty office.

Lynn Katz Laboratory (The University of Texas at Austin) is located in the Ernest C. Cockrell Jr. (ECJ) Building and is equipped to evaluate the thermodynamic properties of reactions within aqueous systems and at solid-water interfaces and to design and develop engineered water treatment systems. The lab comprises 1,200 square feet and includes anaerobic chambers, a class 100 clean room, four fume hoods, temperature-controlled rooms, incubators, bench scale water and soil treatment systems (electrodialysis, nanofiltration, coagulation, thermal remediation, adsorption, biological treatment), and wet chemistry appurtenances (e.g. titrimaters, pH meters, conductivity meters, dissolved oxygen and metal sensors, UV/VIS spectrophotometers) needed to monitor reaction chemistry and treatment performance. Dr. Katz also manages the EWRE Analytical Service Center that houses analytical instrumentation for water quality analyses that is available to the entire campus. All group members have access to laptop computers. In addition, the group has several personal computers that are available within the lab and and for instrument control and data acquisition. Professor Katz's group has approximately 500 square feet of office space for graduate students and a laboratory manager. The group has access, on a reservation basis, to one large conference room that seats over 30 people and three small conference rooms that seat 8-10 people. The conference rooms are equipped with whiteboards, state-of-the-art videoconferencing equipment, and A/V systems to facilitate interactive research meetings, project management, and collaboration.

Manish Kumar's Laboratory (The University of Texas at Austin), which occupies about 2,000 square feet of space in the Ernest C. Cockrell Jr. (ECJ) Building, has facilities to conduct protein expression and purification, polymer and small molecule synthesis, membrane channel and membrane ion transport characterization (both concentration driven and electrophysiological), membrane synthesis, fully automated pilot scale membrane transport studies (for days long tests), a dedicated droplet bilayer setup, and a droplet printing system.  The Kumar lab has four computers in the lab for data analysis and specialized software for data acquisition. All group members have access to laptop computers. Kumar lab graduate students and postdocs have dedicated office spaces on the 8th and 9th floors of the Ernest Cockrell Jr. Hall on the UT Austin campus. The Kumar faculty office, about 200 square feet, includes space to conduct small group meetings and discussions.

Nate Lynd Laboratory (The University of Texas at Austin) has approximately 2,500 square feet of well-equipped laboratory space with capabilities for polymer synthesis, as well as for comprehensive measurements of physical properties. Lab facilities include ten fume hoods and a variety of lab benches configured for experimental needs. There are 12 personal computers within the group. Half of these are workstations used by graduate students for their research studies, and the other half are used for instrument control and data acquisition. The Lynd group has approximately 500 square feet of office space for graduate students. Shared conference rooms equipped with audio/visual equipment are available for in-person and virtual group meetings in the Engineering Education and Research Center and Gary L. Thomas Energy Engineering Building. 

Zak Page Laboratory (The University of Texas at Austin) (4400 square feet) is a well-equipped research space located on the 5th floor of UT Austin’s interdisciplinary Norman Hackerman Building. The fully furnished laboratory provides the essential equipment to perform synthetic organic chemistry reactions and purification, including: 20 fume hoods equipped with piped inert gases, purified water, electrical power and high vacuum, 2 x 4-arm glovebox systems for highly sensitive reagent storage and use, a solvent purification system for dry solvents, and cold storage units (fridge, -20 °C freezer, and -80 °C freezer) for monomers (e.g., epoxy, acrylate, isocyanate, etc.). Additionally, a sonicator, scales, vortex mixers, Kugelrohr distillation glassware, and rotary evaporators are available. An array of high-powered light emitting diodes (LEDs) ranging from long wave ultraviolet (365 nm) to near infrared (940 nm) light are available as needed for a variety of photochemical transformations. Professor Page and the scientists working in the group have access to computers equipped with the software required to accomplish the proposed research (e.g., word processing for experimental record keeping, statistical analysis for data management, and digital image creation for the generation of technical figures). Additionally, they can access processing software needed to plot and analyze infrared and ultraviolet-visible spectroscopic data, among other polymer characterization data. Professor Page’s research group members are located in four office spaces attached to, and with a direct view of, the laboratory space. The lab view and proximity of scientists to one another fosters a safe and collaborative research environment. Professor Page’s nearby office, just down the hallway from the laboratory/student offices, maximizes potential communications. The researchers are provided with access to computers, printing, and photocopying machines.

Gabriel Sanoja Laboratory (The University of Texas at Austin) currently occupies about 1,000 square feet of dedicated laboratory space in the Engineering and Education Research Center (EER) of The University of Texas at Austin. The Sanoja laboratories are specialized for the design of polymers and measurement of thin film and bulk mechanical properties and have all necessary equipment and appurtenances required for this work. It has more than seven personal computers for operating equipment and analyzing and processing data. Unlimited data storage is provided by the Chemical Engineering Information Technology (IT) office, as is software like Matlab, Solidworks, IgorPro, and ChemDraw. The Sanoja group has a shared office space with over thirty desks in EER, along with access to numerous conference rooms with audio/visual capabilities for group meetings, presentations, and online collaboration.