Facilities Statement for Grant Proposals
Ready-to-use descriptions of Pomona’s research computing environment for the Facilities, Equipment and Other Resources section of your proposal. Copy, paste, and adapt.
Where this goes: NSF proposals include a Facilities, Equipment and Other Resources document; NIH applications include a Facilities & Other Resources attachment; most other funders have an equivalent section. Describe resources factually and in present tense, and do not include cost or dollar figures in this section. Use the short version when space is tight, the full version otherwise, and ask us to tailor either to your project.
Short version
One paragraph, for space-constrained proposals.
Pomona College operates Sagehen, an institutionally supported high-performance computing cluster available to faculty and student researchers at no cost. The cluster provides twelve CPU compute nodes (128 compute threads and 500 GB of memory per node) and GPU-accelerated nodes with eleven NVIDIA GPUs (four A100 80 GB, four L40S 48 GB, two RTX PRO 6000 96 GB, and one V100 16 GB), interconnected by a 100 Gb/s EDR InfiniBand fabric and backed by a BeeGFS parallel filesystem. Workloads are managed by the SLURM scheduler, with interactive access through Open OnDemand, JupyterHub, and RStudio Server, and a curated research software environment including MATLAB, Mathematica, COMSOL, ANSYS, and Gaussian. The cluster is professionally administered by the Pomona College Information Technology Services Research Computing group, which provides user support, training, and research consultation. Campus connectivity to the Los Nettos regional research network is provided through a Science DMZ.
Full version
Structured by resource category, following the conventions federal reviewers expect.
Computing. Pomona College operates Sagehen, an institutionally supported high-performance computing cluster available to faculty and student researchers at no cost. The cluster comprises twelve CPU compute nodes, each providing 128 compute threads and 500 GB of memory (1,536 threads and approximately 6 TB of memory in aggregate), and GPU-accelerated nodes providing eleven NVIDIA GPUs: four A100 (80 GB), four L40S (48 GB), two RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell (96 GB), and one V100 (16 GB). Compute nodes are interconnected by a 100 Gb/s EDR InfiniBand fabric. Workloads are managed by the SLURM scheduler, and jobs may run for up to 30 days. Interactive computing is available through an Open OnDemand web portal, JupyterHub, and RStudio Server.
Storage. Active research data is stored on a BeeGFS high-performance parallel filesystem. Each research group receives a 1 TB allocation, expandable as project needs require, with warm (NFS) and cold archival tiers available for intermediate and long-term retention. Sensitive data is protected with encrypted storage (AES-256) configured in consultation with Research Computing staff.
Software. The cluster provides a curated research software environment of more than 90 packages managed through Lmod environment modules, including MATLAB, Mathematica, COMSOL, ANSYS, Gaussian (with WebMO web-based submission), R, Python, PyTorch, and TensorFlow.
Networking. Campus research connectivity to the Los Nettos regional research network is provided through a Science DMZ architecture, supporting high-throughput data transfer between campus and external repositories and collaborators.
Security. Cluster access requires institutional credentials with Duo multi-factor authentication. Research data is governed by a three-tier data classification scheme with corresponding access controls, and the Research Computing security program is guided by NIST SP 800-171 and ISO/IEC 27001.
Personnel and support. The cluster is professionally administered by the Research Computing group within Pomona College Information Technology Services, comprising a director, a systems administrator, and a research support specialist. The group provides individual research consultations, data management planning support, and a hands-on training program of more than twenty workshops spanning introductory computing through GPU-accelerated machine learning.
Access to national resources. For projects requiring computation beyond campus capacity, Research Computing staff assist investigators in obtaining allocations through ACCESS, the National Science Foundation’s national cyberinfrastructure ecosystem.
Acknowledging Sagehen
An acknowledgment in your publications helps demonstrate the cluster’s research impact and sustain its funding.
“The authors acknowledge the use of the Sagehen high-performance computing cluster, operated by Pomona College Information Technology Services, in the completion of this work.”
Writing the Data Management Plan too?
We maintain ready-made DMP language describing Pomona’s storage, backup, and archival infrastructure, plus a comparison of NSF, NIH, DOE, NEH, and foundation requirements. See Research Data Management, or send us your draft DMP for review.
Want it tailored to your proposal?
We’re glad to adapt the statement to your project’s specific computational needs, or to review your facilities section before submission.
Last reviewed: August 2026