Summer is a time of heightened research activity among faculty and students. These projects often require specialized computational and data-related resources beyond personal laptops and desktops. Below is an overview of resources available to support your summer research:

Firebird is Swarthmore’s high-performance computing (HPC) system, offering both a traditional command-line interface and a GUI virtual desktop. Several popular software packages — including Stata, MATLAB, and RStudio — are available and can leverage multiple cores, extended memory, and GPUs. Firebird also supports Python virtual environments and Jupyter Notebooks/Lab.

For transferring, sharing, and managing research data, Globus is available. Additional platforms — including Google Drive, network shares (e.g., AWS S3), and Firebird itself — can support broader research data workflows such as storage, backup, and sharing.

We strongly encourage you to reach out to Jason Simms (jsimms1@swarthmore.edu) as early as possible to discuss your summer research plans. We can schedule a training session tailored to your (or your lab’s) specific needs, to help ensure a productive and efficient summer research season.