Research Facilities

Researchers in the Department of Statistics have access to state-of-the-art facilities, including a research laboratory, a teaching laboratory, a library, multiple Linux and Windows computer labs, a high-performance computing cluster, and a dedicated statistics cluster. These resources provide the tools our faculty and students need to work with large data sets and extend the boundaries of statistical knowledge.

Computer Labs

The Department has a teaching computer lab and a research computer lab, both housed in the Philip E. Austin Building.

The Department’s 21-seat research lab features a mix of Intel-based Linux and Windows systems dedicated to large scale numerical computing and statistical simulation. The research lab is accessible to Ph.D. students, visiting scholars, and faculty members.

Our teaching lab exclusively features Windows machines. It is used for both graduate and undergraduate computing classes. When not in use for teaching, the lab is open to all students, with teaching assistants on duty to serve as tutors.

The Department’s computers are managed and maintained by four lab managers: a Linux quarter-time operations manager and a PC quarter-time operations manager from CLAS IT; a student Linux cluster manager; and a student web administrator. The computer management team maintains, installs, and upgrades the operating systems and software, and they also provide the service of weekly tape-backing up as well as daily trouble-shooting of system problems.

Available Software

A large software base is available on either the PCs or the Linux workstations in both computer labs, which includes SAS, S-Plus, SPSS, GLIM, Minitab, Mathematica, Maple, IMSL (Fortran and C), R, WinBUGS, as well as other packages and languages. IMSL (Fortran and C) and R are also available in the Department's Linux cluster. Please consult the University’s software management listing for the current status of the Department’s paid software license.

In addition, a variety of statistical software, including Minitab, is available to students via the UConn AnyWare virtual desktop. Learn more about access to statistical software.

Computing Clusters

Statistics Computing Cluster

The statistics computing cluster is a network of 32 Linux computers managed by the Department of Physics, and funded and operated by the Department of Statistics and other departments. Like the research lab, it’s accessible to Ph.D. students, visiting scholars, and faculty members. The cluster affords researchers the raw computing power necessary to complete complex calculations for which a single computer would not suffice.

Learn more about the cluster (accessible via the UConn network or VPN).

You can also watch the seminar, “An Introduction to the UConn Statistics Cluster” (UConn NetID required).

For questions related to the cluster, please contact richard.t.jones@uconn.edu.

Additional Notes and Resources

  • The Department of Statistics Computing Committee also hosts departmental computing resources at Github.
  • You can also review the HTCondor Quick Start Guide.
  • Purchase of the cluster and related software was partially supported by NSF Scientific Computing Research Environments for the Mathematical Sciences (SCREMS) Program grant 0723557 to M.H. Chen, Z. Chi (PI), D. Dey and O. Harel.

High-Performance Computing Cluster

In addition to the statistics cluster, UConn operates two high-performance computing clusters for shared use by research groups across the University. These systems, one located in the Farmington campus of UConn Health and the other located on the Storrs campus, are interconnected over a 100GB network to serve the needs of researchers across all campuses for high capacity data movement, storage, and computation.