About Caltech: With an outstanding faculty that has been honored with 32 Nobel prizes and 66 National Medals of Science and Technology, and such off-campus facilities as the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Palomar Observatory and the W. M. Keck Observatory, the California Institute of Technology is one of the world’s major research centers and a premier institution of learning. The Institute conducts instruction in science and engineering for a student body of approximately 950 undergraduates and 1,400 graduate students who maintain a high level of scholarship and intellectual achievement. Caltech’s 124-acre campus is situated in Pasadena, California, a city of 135,000 at the foot of the San Gabriel Mountains, approximately 30 miles inland from the Pacific Ocean and 10 miles northeast of the Los Angeles Civic Center. Caltech is an independent, privately supported university, and is not affiliated with either the University of California system or the California State Polytechnic universities. http://www.caltech.edu

About YALE – Since its founding in 1701, Yale has been dedicated to expanding and sharing knowledge, inspiring innovation, and preserving cultural and scientific information for future generations. Yale’s reach is both local and international. It partners with its hometown of New Haven, Connecticut to strengthen the city’s community and economy. And it engages with people and institutions across the globe in the quest to promote cultural understanding, improve the human condition, delve more deeply into the secrets of the universe, and train the next generation of world leaders. (http://www.yale.edu/about-yale)

About Universidade Estadual Paulista (Unesp) – São Paulo State University (Unesp) is one of the largest and most important Brazilian universities, with distinguished achievements in teaching, research and extension services. Unesp is supported by the State of São Paulo government along with USP (Universidade de São Paulo) and Unicamp (Universidade Estadual de Campinas). Unesp is a successful model of a multicampus university, with 24 campuses strategically distributed throughout the State of São Paulo. Such unique characteristic allows intense and diversified activities in São Paulo, the most developed State in the country. The research activities of Unesp are supported by the main Brazilian funding agencies, which also guarantees cooperation and exchange programs with top institutions throughout the world, focused in nearly every field of experimental and theoretical sciences. (http://www.unesp.br/international/)

About the University of Michigan: The University of Michigan, with its size, complexity, and academic strength, the breadth of its scholarly resources, and the quality of its faculty and students, is one of America’s great public universities and one of the world’s premier research institutions. The university was founded in 1817 and has a total enrollment of 61,392 on all campuses. The main campus is in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and has 43,625 students (fall 2014). With over 600 degree programs and $1.3 billion in 2013-2014 research expenditures, the university is one of the leaders in innovation and research. For more information, see http://obp.umich.edu/michigan-almanac/

About Vanderbilt University: Vanderbilt University, colloquially known as Vandy, is a private research university located in Nashville, Tennessee, United States. Founded in 1873, the university is named in honor of shipping and rail magnate “Commodore” Cornelius Vanderbilt, who provided the school its initial $1 million endowment despite having never been to the South. The Commodore hoped that his gift and the greater work of the university would help to heal the sectional wounds inflicted by the Civil War. For additional information, please visit: http://www.vanderbilt.edu

About iCAIR: The International Center for Advanced Internet Research (iCAIR) has been established to provide a focal point for leading edge Internet research, innovation, and early deployment. iCAIR undertakes basic R&D research projects, designs and implements leading edge prototypes, and manages several large scale advanced communication facilities. An international research center, the majority of iCAIR projects are established with its world-wide partners. For additional information, please visit: http://www.icair.org/about/index.html

About ESnet: ESnet provides the high-bandwidth, reliable connections that link scientists at national laboratories, universities and other research institutions, enabling them to collaborate on some of the world’s most important scientific challenges including energy, climate science, and the origins of the universe. Funded by the DOE Office of Science, ESnet is managed and operated by the Scientific Networking Division at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. As a nationwide infrastructure and DOE User Facility, ESnet provides scientists with access to unique DOE research facilities and computing resources. For additional information, please visit: http://www.es.net

About Internet2: Internet2 is an advanced networking consortium led by the research and education community. An exceptional partnership spanning U.S. and international institutions who are leaders in the worlds of research, academia, industry and government, the Internet2 community is developing breakthrough network technologies that support the most exacting applications of today—and spark the most essential innovations of tomorrow.
Led by its members and focused on their current and future networking needs since 1996, Internet2 blends its unsurpassed human, IP and optical networks to develop and deploy revolutionary Internet technologies. Activating the same partnerships that produced today’s Internet, our community is actively promoting the kinds of collaboration and innovation that can have—and has already had—a fundamental impact on the future of the Internet, and its fast-growing world of users. For additional information, please visit: http://www.internet2.edu/about/

About the National Science Foundation: The National Science Foundation (NSF) is an independent federal agency created by Congress in 1950 “to promote the progress of science; to advance the national health, prosperity, and welfare; to secure the national defense…” With an annual budget of about $6.9 billion (FY 2010), we are the funding source for approximately 20 percent of all federally supported basic research conducted by America’s colleges and universities. In many fields such as mathematics, computer science and the social sciences, NSF is the major source of federal backing.

About the DOE Office of Science: The U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science is the lead federal agency supporting fundamental scientific research for energy and the Nation’s largest supporter of basic research in the physical sciences. The Office of Science portfolio has two principal thrusts: direct support of scientific research and direct support of the development, The Office of Science also manages 10 world-class national laboratories with unmatched capabilities for solving complex interdisciplinary problems, and it builds and operates some of the nation’s most advanced R&D user facilities, located at national laboratories and universities. These facilities are used by more than 24,000 researchers from universities, other government agencies, and private industry each year.