---
title: "UNM awarded prestigious grant to lead national research on high-performance computing"
description: "A UNM-led team wins a DOE NNSA PSAAP IV cooperative agreement, establishing the COMPASS center at CARC."
type: News
tags:
  - News
  - Research
generated:
  by: "claude/fable-5"
  at: "2026-08-29T00:00:00Z"
sources:
  - id: carc-web
    resource: "https://carc.unm.edu/news--events/News/psaap-iv.html"
    title: "PSAAP IV award (carc.unm.edu)"
    author: "team:unm-carc"
---

# UNM awarded prestigious grant to lead national research on high-performance computing

<p class="carc-byline">By Mariah Rosales</p>

A collaborative team of universities, spearheaded by the Center for Advanced
Research Computing (CARC) at the University of New Mexico, has been awarded
one of nine cooperative agreements under the Predictive Science Academic
Alliance Program IV (PSAAP IV) by the U.S. Department of Energy's
[National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA)](https://www.energy.gov/nnsa){target=_blank}.

Along with UNM, partnering institutions include the
[University of Alabama](https://www.ua.edu/){target=_blank},
[Tennessee Technological University](https://www.tntech.edu/){target=_blank},
and the [University of California at Davis](https://www.ucdavis.edu/){target=_blank}.

Together they will establish the **Center for Optimized Modern Parallel
Adaptable System Software (COMPASS)**, which will be based within the CARC
Department at UNM. COMPASS builds on the successes of UNM's previous PSAAP
III center — the Center for Understandable, Performant Exascale
Communication Systems (CUP-ECS) — and will focus on developing scalable,
uncertainty-aware system software to enable predictive modeling at scale.

This research is vital because advances in high-performance computing impact
fields that touch everyday life — from weather forecasting and climate
modeling to medical research, national security, and the development of new
technologies. By creating more efficient and adaptable computing systems,
COMPASS aims to make scientific discoveries faster and more reliable.

COMPASS will be led by UNM Computer Science Professor Patrick Bridges as
Principal Investigator, along with co-PIs:

* Amanda Bienz — University of New Mexico
* Trilce Estrada — University of New Mexico
* Purushotham Bangalore — University of Alabama
* Anthony Skjellum — Tennessee Technological University
* Steve Shkoller — University of California at Davis

This research team combines complementary expertise in scalable software
systems, communication technologies, and simulation science to advance
predictive science and train the next generation of computational
scientists. "COMPASS seeks to use AI insights to transform how scientific
applications and system software work together to leverage high-performance
computing systems and address important scientific problems. We are excited
to continue to move this research forward and look forward to the close
collaboration with our national lab colleagues that is fundamental to the
NNSA PSAAP program," said Bridges.

PSAAP is managed by
[NNSA's Office of Advanced Simulation and Computing and Institutional Research and Development Programs](https://www.energy.gov/nnsa/office-advanced-simulation-and-computing){target=_blank}
in collaboration with
[Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory](https://www.llnl.gov/){target=_blank},
[Los Alamos National Laboratory](https://www.lanl.gov/){target=_blank}, and
[Sandia National Laboratories](https://www.sandia.gov/){target=_blank}. The
program engages the U.S. academic community in advancing predictive science
through high-performance computing and ensures U.S. leadership in
simulation-based research.

For more information, visit
[psaap.llnl.gov](https://psaap.llnl.gov/){target=_blank} or the
[DOE NNSA PSAAP IV announcement](https://www.energy.gov/nnsa/articles/nnsa-announces-selection-next-round-predictive-science-academic-alliance-program){target=_blank}.

![COMPASS center logo](https://carc.unm.edu/images/compass-logo_draft6-06.png)