Certificate in High Performance Computing
In today’s job market, proficiency in numerical computation is a major asset. A student able to document skills in this area will have a significant edge when it comes to finding an interesting and rewarding position after graduation. The purpose of the Certificate in High Performance Computing is to recognize the expertise gained by UH students in the course of their studies with a specific annotation in their transcript.
Cost:
Each graduate level course has an associated graduate student fee/tuition. Please make sure you contact the HPC Certificate coordinator for details. Graduate program costs vary by department, residency status, the amount of courses taken per semester, and etc. Enrolling in the HPC Certificate program will incur higher fees due to the additional degree plan being placed on your account. Please refer to the graduate tuition fees calculator for an estimate.
- Be enrolled in a graduate program at UH in the Colleges of Engineering or NSM.
- Take 3 (1-credit-hour) short courses offered by HPE DSI from this list (except ‘Coding Interviews’ or ‘Principles of Data Management).
- Take 4 graduate (3-credit-hours) regular courses from the list in the ‘Accepted Courses’ tab, following one of these combinations:
- Students from Engineering or Biology or Chemistry or Earth and Atm. or Physics
- Take 2 courses from your Department
- Take 1 from the ‘Fundamental Computer Science’ list
- Take 1 from the MATH list
- Students from Computer Science
- Take 4 courses from the COSC list
- Or, take 3 from the COSC list plus one from the MATH list
- Students from Mathematics
- Take 3 courses from the MATH list
- Take 1 from the ‘Fundamental Computer Science’ list
- Students from Engineering or Biology or Chemistry or Earth and Atm. or Physics
Advising
The HPC Certificate Program Director will be the adviser for each student. The adviser will make sure that the list of courses to be used for the Certificate is suitable and will monitor the fulfillment of the Certificate requirements. The adviser will also check whether the student has the requisite background for the courses she or he plans to take.
Administration
The program will be administered by HPE DSI. When students have completed the requirements, they will apply for a Certificate of Completion by filling out a form in which they will list both the regular courses and the short courses that they have taken. The HPE DSI office will check that the short-course requirements have been fulfilled and will then send the form to the student’s home department to check that the four required regular courses have been completed as well. The form will then be sent the Office of the Registrar so that a proper annotation can be included in the student’s record. A Certificate of Completion will also be issued by the student’s College.
The following is a list of accepted courses for the HPC Certificate.
College of Natural Sciences and Mathematics
| Biology and Biochemistry. The courses listed below are required to fulfill the HPC Certificate requirements: | |
|---|---|
| BIOL 6224 | Programming for Biologists |
| BIOL 6324 | Bioinformatics |
| Chemistry. Two courses from the list that follows can be used to fulfill the HPC Certificate requirements: | |
|---|---|
| CHEM 6321 | Quantum Chemistry |
| CHEM 6322 | Statistical Thermodynamics |
| CHEM 7321 | Quantum Mechanics in Chemistry |
| CHEM 7323 | Statistical Mechanics in Chemistry |
| Computer Science. Four courses from the list that follows (or three courses from the list and one Mathematics course) can be used to fulfill the HPC Certificate requirements: | |
|---|---|
| COSC 6339 | Big Data Analytics |
| COSC 6364 | Advanced Numerical Analysis |
| COSC 6365 | Introduction to High-Performance Computing |
| COSC 6374 | Parallel Computations |
| COSC 6376 | Cloud Computing |
| COSC 6377 | Computer Networks |
| Earth and Atmospheric Sciences. Two courses from the list that follows can be used to fulfill the HPC Certificate requirements: | |
|---|---|
| GEOL 6325 | Remote Sensing |
| GEOL 6335 | Atmospheric Numerical Modeling |
| Mathematics. Three courses from the list that follows can be used to fulfill the HPC Certificate requirements: | |
|---|---|
| MATH 6366 | Optimization and Variational Methods I |
| MATH 6367 | Optimization and Variational Methods II |
| MATH 6370 | Numerical Analysis I |
| MATH 6371 | Numerical Analysis II |
| MATH 6373 | Automatic Learning & Data Mining |
| MATH 6374 | Numerical Partial Differential Equations |
| MATH 6376 | Numerical Linear Algebra |
| MATH 6378 | Basic Scientific Computing |
| MATH 7374 | Finite Element Methods |
| Physics. To fulfill the HPC Certificate requirements students must take the following two courses: | |
|---|---|
| PHYS 6350 | Computational Physics |
| PHYS 7350 | Advanced Computational Physics |
Cullen College of Engineering
| Biomedical Engineering. Two courses from the list that follows can be used to fulfill the HPC Certificate requirements: | |
|---|---|
| BIOE 6300 | Mathematical Methods in Biomedical Engineering |
| BIOE 6301 | Statistical Methods in Biomedical Engineering |
| BIOE 6342 | Biomedical Signal Processing |
| BIOE 6346 | Advanced Medical Imaging |
| Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering. Two courses from the list that follows can be used to fulfill the HPC Certificate requirements: | |
|---|---|
| CHEE 6332 | Mathematical Methods in Chemical Engineering II |
| CHEE 6365 | Fundamentals of Catalysis |
| CHEE 6367 | Advanced Process Control |
| CHEE 7350 | Applied Nonlinear Methods for Engineers |
| Civil and Environmental Engineering. Two courses from the list that follows can be used to fulfill the HPC Certificate requirements: | |
|---|---|
| CIVE 6380 | Introduction to Geomatics/Geosensing |
| CIVE 7336 | Finite Element Methods |
| CIVE 7338 | Dynamics of Structures |
| CIVE 7342 | Engineering Geographic Information Systems |
| CIVE 7380 | GNSS/INS Augmented Systems for Positioning and Navigation |
| Electrical and Computer Engineering. Two courses from the list that follows can be used to fulfill the HPC Certificate requirements: | |
|---|---|
| ECE 6313 | Neural Networks |
| ECE 6328 | CMOS Analog Integrated Circuits |
| ECE 6346 | VLSI Design |
| ECE 6350 | Numerical Methods in Electromagnetics |
| ECE 6351 | Microwave Engineering |
| ECE 6355 | Introduction to Well-Logging Techniques |
| ECE 6364 | Digital Image Processing |
| ECE 6366 | Physical Design of VLSI Circuits |
| ECE 6372 | Advance Hardware Design |
| ECE 6376 | Digital Pattern Recognition |
| ECE 6378 | Power Systems Analysis |
| Industrial Engineering. Two courses from the list that follows can be used to fulfill the HPC Certificate requirements: | |
|---|---|
| INDE 7340 | Integer Programming |
| INDE 7342 | Nonlinear Optimization |
| INDE 7372 | Tools and Methods for Optimization |
| Mechanical Engineering. Two courses from the list that follows can be used to fulfill the HPC Certificate requirements: | |
|---|---|
| MECE 6397 | Computational Modeling of Materials |
| MECE 6353 | Introduction to Computational Fluid Dynamics |
| MECE 6357 | Computational Fluid Dynamics II |
| MECE 6397 | Design, Modeling and Optimization |
| Petroleum Engineering. In order to qualify for the HPC Certificate students must take the following course and, in addition, 1-2 courses from the list for the HPC certificate for the Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences. | |
|---|---|
| PETR 6302 | Reservoir Engineering II |
| Fundamental Computer Science List. The first two courses are graduate-level courses designed for students with little or no previous exposure to computer science; the last two require some programming experience. | |
|---|---|
| COSC 6305 | Introduction to Computer Science II |
| COSC 6308 | Computer Architecture |
| COSC 6364 | Advanced Numerical Analysis |
| COSC 6365 | Introduction to High-Performance Computing |
| COSC 6376 | Cloud Computing |
Prerequisite: Students must either take or pass a placement test for the course “Introduction to Cluster Computing: Linux, shell scripting, queuing systems, cluster architecture”. This course does not count towards the required 3 HPE DSI courses in the HPC Certificate Program.
Students are required to take and pass 3 skill-based, rather than academic, short courses (15 contact-hours each) offered by HPE DSI.
The following blocks are offered. Students are encouraged to pick one course from each block.
A) Scientific Programming Languages
- Scientific Programming with C++
- Scientific Programming with Python
- Scientific Programming with R
B) Parallel Programming
- OpenMP Programming
- MPI Programming
- GPU Programming
C) Tools
- Debugging and Performance Tuning: Gnu Debugger, Gnu Profiler, Intel Debugger, Intel Profiler
- Machine Learning: data analytics, deep learning, predictive analytics
- Scientific Visualization and Data Analysis: VisIt and Paraview
The courses are free. Students can register through our course management system.
You can only graduate if you are still enrolled in a graduate program at UH and have fulfilled all requirements.
The procedures for graduation with the HPC Certificate are following graduation procedures in the College of Engineering. Students are responsible to follow those guidelines and the timelines outlined in the procedures. In order to graduate with the HPC Certificate you have to follow a couple of steps:
- Add the HPC Certificate as a concurrent degree: Fill in a graduate student petition (the form can be found on the Graduate School website), select point 3 and stating "Please add student to a new graduate career objective: Program: 035NG, Plan: HPCNGC". Submit it to the program coordinator (see contact information on the left). This should be done 1 month before you start your graduating semester (the last semester for your regular Masters or PhD degree) to avoid additional fees.
- Apply for graduation as outlined in the official UH process
- Submit a Degree Plan: You need to fill in the form below which will collect information required to check whether you have taken all courses. This will be done towards the end of your graduating semester.
We will check your information, make sure all requirements are met and route your Degree Plan to the registrar office after you have finished all the courses. If you have questions about the process, please feel free to contact the program coordinator.