[Milkyway@home] Fundraiser

[VictordeHolland]

De toekomst van Milkyway@home is in gevaar, zie onderstaande nieuwsbericht:

Dear MilkyWay@home Volunteer,

We need your help.

During the past year we have made great strides in scientific research using MilkyWay@home and we have great plans for the future. Thank you for helping to make this happen!

In May we were informed that the U.S. National Science Foundation is not renewing the grant that operates MilkyWay@home. This is happening to strong and hard-working research teams all over the country. Unfortunately, we are one of them.

The future of our project is in jeopardy. To maintain operations for the next year, we need to raise a minimum of $40K. You've been gracious enough to volunteer your computer for a great cause. At this critical juncture, we need your help more than ever.

We cannot do this without you.

If each active volunteer donates just $2 apiece, we can reach our goal.

<Donate button>

The MilkyWay@home team and I thank you so much for your assistance!

Informatie over hoe het budget tot stand is gekomen:

Budget Information
Our federal grant was $150K per year, but we believe we can maintain operations during a gap year by funding only the most essential student salaries and communications of our scientific results. As the head of the project, Dr. Newberg will contribute her time even though she will not receive summer salary. The graduate students will work as teaching assistants, which will cover their graduate tuition and nine month stipend. We also incur lower institutional costs on gifts than on federal grants (on federal grants, the university charges an additional 60% to cover administrative costs, buildings, utilities, etc.). The budget includes salary for undergraduate students, graduate student summer salary, conference travel to present results, the costs of publishing our scientific results in journals, plus institutional overhead and incentives (18% of total budget).

Co-op salary for undergraduate student Jake Weiss to work full time on MilkyWay@home for a semester: $6000
Summer salary for graduate student Siddhartha Shelton: $6500
Summer salary for two undergraduate students, who also contribute for course credit during the school year: $8000
Travel for the PI and/or students to travel to conferences to present science results: $4800
Page charges for publishing two papers in scientific journals: $5000
Travel for two undergraduate students to present a poster showing their results at a meeting of the American Astronomical Society: $3000
Institutional overhead and incentives: $7180
Total: $40,480

As you can see, MilkyWay@home is staffed primarily by undergraduate student interns, who incidentally use this experience to go on to great graduate schools or great jobs!

Meer informatie op de speciale fundraiser pagina van Milkyway@home

[ Voor 45% gewijzigd door VictordeHolland op 09-07-2014 01:20 . Reden: meer informatie ]

[VictordeHolland]

Fundraiser Progress
To stay in operation for the next year, we need to raise $40K, and we need your help!
Progress: $15,332.49
Updated: July 8, 2014

[Theadalus]

Hm, als ik het zo lees gaat een redelijk gedeelte van het budget op aan een paar studenten, daar ga ik so-wie-so niet voor betalen. Daarnaast vind ik dat ik financieel al genoeg bijdraag in de vorm van energiekosten en hardware.

[VictordeHolland]

Als ik het goed heb begrepen zijn het juist de (under)graduate students die de software bijhouden/verbeteren/vernieuwen en de nieuwe 'runs' starten.

@Theadalus
Een begrijpelijke keuze, die niemand je kwalijk neemt.

[VictordeHolland]

Het gaat lekker met de fundraiser voor Milkyway:

MilkyWay@home passes 50% of fundraising goal!!

Hello Everyone,

I would like to let you all know we have surpassed the 50% mark for our fundraising goal! We could not have done it without you all, Thank you! here is a message from Professor Newberg:

"I would like to personally thank each and every MilkyWay@home supporter who has helped us to raise $21,843.97 towards our goal of $40,480 to keep up operations through summer 2015. So far, 324 people have sent money by credit card, Paypal, and check to support our work of tracing tidal streams in the Milky Way halo and using them to determine the location of dark matter. We have received donations from $0.23 to $5000 (Wow!), and sent out 36 fabulous T-shirts to donors. Some of you have included really wonderful notes along with your donations, that I have really appreciated.

Already, your donations have made it possible to offer Jake Weiss his co-op job for fall 2014, we know we will be able to continue to publish our papers in highly cited journals for the next year, and graduate student Sidd Shelton has his summer salary funded. This puts in a much, much better position than we were two weeks ago. Additional donations will fund conference travel (so we can tell other scientists about our findings, and get new ideas) and undergraduate student summer salary. Undergraduate research have in recent years been the driver behind MilkyWay@home software development, but to continue that they need summer support and opportunities for professional travel.

Thank you all, really, for your continued support of MilkyWay@home.

Sincerely,
Prof. Heidi Jo Newberg"

[Theadalus]

$0.23... transactiekosten zijn nog hoger.