Identify, Build, and Develop

The Research Computing Services staff at Northwestern helps students, faculty, and staff researchers across all disciplines to leverage computational resources and software to achieve their research goals at little to no cost. Depending on the needs of each researcher and project, we provide resources and training to empower their work and troubleshoot computational issues, including:

• Identifying computing and corresponding storage resources for research projects that are unique to each project's needs
• Access to the University’s high-performance batch and interactive computing, cloud, national computing, and virtual machine resources
• Software installation and management, including building and utilizing virtual environments and software containers in supported computing systems
• Quarterly workshops and orientation sessions  
• One-on-one consultation  

Our support and consultation services are offered at no cost. Northwestern students, faculty, and staff can obtain General Access to Quest at no cost for research and educational purposes. However, researchers who need Priority Access to compute nodes and additional storage space on Quest can purchase resources. Learn more about allocations on Quest.

Funding from the Office of the Provost and Northwestern IT supports Research Computing and Data Services.

The Research Computing Support team offers multiple options for help and training with high-performance computing systems and skills, including:

• One-on-one consultations
• Weekly, in-person office hours in Mudd Library; View the schedule
• Workshops and orientation sessions
• Tutorials for common applications

Questions and Troubleshooting

The easiest way to contact Research Computing Services staff is to submit an IT help ticket by filling out a support request form or emailing quest-help@northwestern.edu.

Submit a Help Ticket