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OKLAHOMA SUPERCOMPUTING SYMPOSIUM 2021



OSCER

OU IT, it.ou.edu

OK EPSCoR, okepscor.org


Table of Contents


PLENARY SPEAKERS

KEYNOTE SPEAKER
Margaret Martonosi
Margaret Martonosi

Assistant Director
Computer and Information Science and Engineering
National Science Foundation

Topic: "The CISE Research, Education, and Infrastructure Landscape: A Look Forward"

Slides: PDF

Talk Abstract

The National Science Foundation The National Science Foundation (NSF) supports a majority of US academic research in the Computer and Information Science and Engineering (CISE) topic areas. Since February, 2020, Dr. Margaret Martonosi serves as NSF CISE AD, stewarding the CISE directorate's $1B annual budget on behalf of research, education, workforce and infrastructure funding in CISE topic areas and for science as a whole. In this talk, Martonosi will offer a vision for CISE research going forward, and the NSF programmatics to support that vision.

Biography

Margaret Martonosi is the US National Science Foundation's Assistant Director for Computer and Information Science and Engineering and information Science and Engineering (CISE). With an annual budget of more than $1B, the CISE directorate at NSF has the mission to uphold the Nation's leadership in scientific discovery and engineering innovation through its support of fundamental research and education in computer and information science and engineering as well as transformative advances in research cyberinfrastructure. While at NSF, Dr. Martonosi is on leave from Princeton University where she is the Hugh Trumbull Adams '35 Professor of Computer Science. Dr. Martonosi's research interests are in computer architecture and hardware-software interface issues in both classical and quantum computing systems. Dr. Martonosi is a member of the National Academy of Engineering and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. She is a Fellow of the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) and the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE).

Henry Neeman
Henry Neeman

Executive Director for Research Computing
Information Technology
Director
OU Supercomputing Center for Education & Research (OSCER)
Information Technology
Associate Professor
College of Engineering
Adjunct Associate Professor
School of Computer Science
University of Oklahoma
Joint Co-manager (with Dana Brunson)
XSEDE Campus Engagement program

Topic: "OSCER State of the Center Address"

Slides:   PowerPoint   PDF

Talk Abstract

The OU Supercomputing Center for Education & Research (OSCER) celebrated its 20th anniversary on August 31 2021. In this report, we examine what OSCER is, what OSCER does, what OSCER has accomplished in its 20 years, and where OSCER is going.

Biography

Dr. Henry Neeman is the Director of the OU Supercomputing Center for Education & Research, Executive Director for Research Computing, Associate Professor in the College of Engineering and Adjunct Associate Professor in the School of Computer Science at the University of Oklahoma. He and Dana Brunson have been appointed joint co-leads of the XSEDE Campus Engagement program, which includes the Campus Champions.

He received his BS in computer science and his BA in statistics with a minor in mathematics from the State University of New York at Buffalo in 1987, his MS in CS from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 1990 and his PhD in CS from UIUC in 1996. Prior to coming to OU, Dr. Neeman was a postdoctoral research associate at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications at UIUC, and before that served as a graduate research assistant both at NCSA and at the Center for Supercomputing Research & Development.

In addition to his own teaching and research, Dr. Neeman has collaborated with dozens of research groups, applying High Performance Computing techniques in fields such as numerical weather prediction, bioinformatics and genomics, data mining, high energy physics, astronomy, nanotechnology, petroleum reservoir management, river basin modeling and engineering optimization. He serves as an ad hoc advisor to student researchers in many of these fields.

Dr. Neeman's research interests include high performance computing, scientific computing, parallel and distributed computing and computer science education.

Lynne Parker
Lynne Parker

Director
National AI Initiative Office
Assistant Director of OSTP for Artificial Intelligence
Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP)
The White House

Topic: "The National AI Research Resource and the National AI Initiative"

Slides: PDF

Talk Abstract

In January 2021, the National AI Initiative was launched, which included the creation of a Task Force to prepare an implementation plan for a National AI Research Resource -- a comprehensive computational and data infrastructure aimed at democratizing access to needed resources for the AI research community. This talk will overview the work of this Task Force and place it in the context of the goals and activities of the National AI Initiative.

Biography

Dr. Lynne E. Parker is the Founding Director of the National Artificial Intelligence (AI) Initiative Office, and Assistant Director for AI in the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP). In these roles, she leads national AI policy efforts and coordinates AI activities across the Federal agencies in support of the National AI Initiative. She also serves as the co-chair of the National AI Research Resource Task Force. Dr. Parker has advanced AI policy in the White House since August 2018, and has played an integral role in numerous landmark national AI policies that bolster research, governance, education and workforce training, and international engagement. Dr. Parker is Professor of computer science at the University of Tennessee (UT) (on assignment to OSTP). She is an expert on distributed and intelligent robot systems, human-robot interaction, and AI, and has published extensively in these areas. She has held leadership positions at UT (Interim Dean), the National Science Foundation (Division Director), and Oak Ridge National Laboratory (Distinguished R&D Staff Member and Group Leader). She received her PhD from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) and the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE).

Katherine Riley
Katherine Riley

Director of Science
Argonne Leadership Computing Facility
Argonne National Laboratory

Topic: "The Argonne Leadership Computing Facility - Science at Exascale and Beyond"

Slides: PDF

Talk Abstract

For 15 years, the Argonne Leadership Computing Facility has helped lead the way in scientific excellence on supercomputing resources. In this talk, I will give an overview of what the facility has achieved to now, and how we are adapting as we look to scientific computing in the future. As the US exascale systems come on in the next year, I will overview how we are preparing research teams, and paint a picture for what we might be seeing in future systems.

Biography

Katherine Riley is the Director of Science for the Argonne Leadership Computing Facility (ALCF), leading a team of experts in computational science, performance engineering, visualizations, and data sciences. She leads scientific strategy for the ALCF, ensuring the facility delivers leading-edge computational capabilities and expertise that helps advance fundamental discovery and understanding in a broad range of scientific and engineering disciplines. She has led multiple efforts to collect HPC and scientific application development requirements from multiple scientific communities. Currently, she is also the program manager for U.S. Department of Energy's Innovative and Novel Computational Impact on Theory and Experiment (INCITE) - the flagship allocation program for both DOE Leadership Computing Facilities.

Dan Stanzione
Dan Stanzione

Executive Director
Texas Advanced Computing Center
The University of Texas at Austin

Topic: "TACC@20 — Twenty Years of Research Computing at the Texas Advanced Computing Center, and on to the Leadership Class Computing Facility"

Slides:   PowerPoint

Talk Abstract

TACC just had its 20th anniversary. In this talk, we'll take a brief walk through all that has happened in the 20 year history of the center, and how things are evolving still. The talk will also cover the requirements gathered for the upcoming National Science Foundation Leadership Class Computing Facility, slated to launch construction in 2024, and how learnings from this process are affecting how we build and operate HPC systems today.

Biography

Dan Stanzione is the Executive Director of the Texas Advanced Computing Center (TACC) at The University of Texas at Austin and the Principal Investigator for Wrangler. He is also the PI for TACC's 10 PetaFlop Stampede supercomputer, and has previously been involved in the deployment and operation of the Ranger and Lonestar supercomputers at TACC. He served as the Co-Director of The iPlant Collaborative, an ambitious endeavor to build cyberinfrastructure to address the grand challenges of plant science. Prior to joining TACC, Dr. Stanzione was the founding director of the Ira A. Fulton High Performance Computing Institute (HPCI) at Arizona State University (ASU). Before ASU, he served as an AAAS Science Policy Fellow in the National Science Foundation and as a research professor at Clemson University, his alma mater.

Thirumalai "Venky" Venkatesan
Thirumalai (Venky) Venkatesan

Executive Director
Center for Quantum Research and Technology
Professor
Homer L. Dodge Department of Physics & Astronomy
University of Oklahom

Topic: "An Organic Electronic Platform for Ultra-low energy and Brain like Electronics"

Slides:     PowerPoint

Talk Abstract

Coming soon

Biography

Coming Soon

Prof. T. Venkatesan is currently the Director of the Center for Quantum Research and Technology (Professor of Physics and School of Electrical & Computer Engineering) at the University of Oklahom, Scientific affiliate at National Institute of Standards and Technology Gaithersburg and Adjunct Professor of ECE at National University of Singapore (NUS). Prior to this, he was Director of the Nano Institute at NUS (NUSNNI), where he was a Professor of ECE, Physics, MSE and NGS. He wore various hats at Bell Labs and Bellcore before becoming a Professor at the University of Maryland As the inventor of the pulsed laser deposition (PLD) process, he has over 800 papers and 34 patents and is globally among the top one hundred physicists (ranked at 66 in 2000) in terms of his citations (over 51,186, with a Hirsch Index of 115, per Google Scholar). He has graduated over 56 PhDs, 35 postdocs and over 35 undergraduates. He is also the founder and Chairman of Neocera and Neocera Magma, companies specializing in PLD and magnetic field imaging systems, and co-founder of Blue Wave Semiconductors. He recently helped launch two healthcare companies in Singapore, Cellivate and Breathonix. Close to 12 of the researchers (PhD students and postdocs) under him have become entrepreneurs, starting over 25 different commercial enterprises.

He is a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS), American Physical Society (APS), Materials Research Society (MRS), winner of the Bellcore Award of excellence, George E. Pake Prize awarded by APS (2012), Distinguished Lectureship on the Applications of Physics Award- APS (2020), President's gold medal of the Institute of Physics Singapore, Guest Professor at Tsinghua University, Academician of the Asia Pacific Academy of Materials, Fellow of the World Innovation Forum, past member of the Physics Policy Committee (Washington DC), the Board of Visitors at UMD and the Chairman of the Forum of Industry and Applications of Physics at APS. He was awarded the outstanding alumnus award from two Indian Institute of Technologies- IIT Kanpur (2015) and IIT Kharagpur (2016), India.


PANELISTS

Kendra Dresback
Kendra Dresback

Research Assistant Professor
School of Civil Engineering & Environmental Science
University of Oklahoma

Panel Topic: "It Was 20 Years Ago Today: OSCER Then and Now"

Panel Abstract

OSCER was founded on August 31 2001. In this panel, OSCER users from the early days talk about what OSCER was like then, how OSCER has evolved, and what impact OSCER has had.

Biography

Dr. Kendra M. Dresback is a Research Assistant Professor in the School of Civil Engineering & Environmental Science at the University of Oklahoma. She received her PhD in Civil Engineering at the University of Oklahoma. Her dissertation focused on several algorithmic improvements to the same finite element-based shallow water model, ADCIRC. She has published papers in the area of computational fluid dynamics. Dr. Dresback's research includes the use of computational models to help in the prediction of hurricane storm surge and riverine flooding in coastal areas and the incorporation of transport effects in coastal seas in ADCIRC. Her research has been supported with funding from the National Science Foundation, the US Department of Education, the Office of Naval Research, the US Department of Defense EPSCoR, the US Department of Homeland Security, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the US Army Corp of Engineers.

David Jahn
David Jahn

Research Scientist II
Cooperative Institute for Mesoscale Meteorological Studies
University of Oklahoma
National Oceanographic & Atmospheric Administration/National Weather Service Storm Prediction Center

Panel Topic: "It Was 20 Years Ago Today: OSCER Then and Now"

Panel Abstract

OSCER was founded on August 31 2001. In this panel, OSCER users from the early days talk about what OSCER was like then, how OSCER has evolved, and what impact OSCER has had.

Biography

David Jahn is a Research Scientist II at the Cooperative Institute for Mesoscale Meteorological Studies of the University of Oklahoma (OU), serving as a member of the Science Support Branch within the Storm Prediction Center (SPC) of the National Oceanographic & Atmospheric Administration National Weather Service. David began his academic career in the field of Electrical Engineering with a B.S. and M.S.E.E. respectively from Oral Roberts University (1987) and the University of Colorado (1991). He received an M.S. in Meteorology from OU University of Oklahoma (OU) in 1995, and served as Managing Director and Research Scientist at OU's Center for Analysis and Prediction of Storms (CAPS) through 2004. In 2005, he joined Weathernews Inc at their global offices in Chiba, Japan, where he served as a research scientist and cross-cultural liaison among Weathernews facilities in Asia, Europe, and the US. He later was supported as a research fellow through a National Science Foundation Integrative Graduate Education and Research Traineeship (IGERT) grant (now called the NSF Research Traineeship Program) Iowa State University where he completed a Ph.D. in Meteorology and Wind Energy Science, Engineering, and Policy in 2016.

His current research focus for the SPC is to improve tornado probability forecasts by investigating what are the optimal convective-allowing model (CAM) storm and environmental parameters, including appropriate combination of such, to distinguish tornadic storms. Previous research has involved modifying boundary-layer parameterization schemes to improve CAM wind forecasts as well as microphysics schemes to improve lake-effect snow forecasts. He has had extensive experience organizing and supporting international research collaborations, and speaks several languages.

Kim Owen
Kim Owen

Program Manager
Information Technology
North Dakota State University

Panel Topic: "Women In HPC - Great Plains Network Chapter"

Slides:   PDF

Panel Abstract

Introducing a Midwest Women in HPC chapter, our goals and future prospects.

Biography

Kim Owen currently serves as Program Manager for Research and Education Network Resources for the Office of the Vice President for Information Technology at North Dakota State University. Her primary responsibility is to facilitate the use of specialized resources available through the global research and education (R&E) network community, including Internet2, the Northern Tier Network, and the Northern Wave. Kim's duties include management and oversight of contracts and fiscal agency of North Dakota's affiliation with the regional and national research and education networks. Kim leads project management for NDSU's key partnerships within the R&E community, aimed at extending research and academic resources to faculty and students within NDSU, the NDUS, the ND Tribal Colleges and the North Dakota K-12 community. Prior to joining NDSU, Kim served the state K12 community at EduTech for twelve years, where she supervised professional development and client services in technology assessment and curriculum integration.

Dimitrios Papavassiliou
Dimitrios Papavassiliou

C. M. Sliepcevich Professor
School of Chemical, Biological & Materials Engineering
University of Oklahoma

Panel Topic: "It Was 20 Years Ago Today: OSCER Then and Now"

Panel Abstract

OSCER was founded on August 31 2001. In this panel, OSCER users from the early days talk about what OSCER was like then, how OSCER has evolved, and what impact OSCER has had.

Biography

Dimitrios Papavassiliou is the C. M. Sliepcevich Professor in the School of Chemical, Biological & Materials Engineering at the University of Oklahoma. He holds a BS degree from the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki in Greece, and MS and PhD degrees from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, all in Chemical Engineering. Upon graduation, Dimitrios joined Mobil Technology Company's Upstream Strategic Research Center, which was responsible for the long term, high risk/high reward research efforts in Exploration and Production for Mobil. Dimitrios came to the University of Oklahoma in 1999, where he was named a President's Associates Presidential Professor in 2006, and the C.M. Sliepcevich Professor of Chemical Engineering in 2013.

His research contributions are in the area of transport processes and mesoscale modeling, including turbulent transport, micro and nano-fluidics, flow and transport through porous media, and computational fluid dynamics for biomedical applications. Dr. Papavassiliou has published over 135 journal articles, mostly with his graduate and undergraduate students. His research has received funding from federal sources (National Science Foundation, National Institutes of Health, Department of Energy), defense agencies (Office of Naval Research, Air Force Office of Scientific Research), private funds (American Chemical Society-Petroleum Research Fund) and private company consortia (Integrated Poromechanics Institute, Advanced Energy Consortium). He is the lead PI of the University of Oklahoma Big Big Idea Challenge program on Carbon-Free H2 Energy Producton and Storage.

Dr. Papavassiliou served as the Program Director for Fluid Dynamics in the Division of Chemical, Bioengineering, Environmental and Transport Systems at the National Science Foundation (2013-2016). Through that position he managed a research portfolio with a budget that grew from $9.5M/year to about $12M/year, while developing collaborations between NSF and other Federal agencies. He currently serves on the AIChE Journal consulting editors board and he is a Fellow of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers.

Natasha Pavlovikj
Natasha Pavlovikj

Graduate Research Assistant
Holland Computing Center
Nebraska Food for Health Center
University of Nebraska Lincoln

Panel Topic: "Women In HPC - Great Plains Network Chapter"

Slides:   PDF

Panel Abstract

Introducing a Midwest Women in HPC chapter, our goals and future prospects.

Biography

Natasha Pavlovikj is a PhD candidate in Computer Science at the University of Nebraska Lincoln. Her research focuses on bioinformatics and high-performance computing. In particular, she is interested in building scalable and modular workflows and methods for bacterial population genomics that efficiently utilize high-performance and high-throughput computational platforms. She is certified Software & Data Carpentry instructor and CyberAmbassador, and helps with various HPC support and outreach events on her campus.

Christina Roberts
Christina Roberts

CyberInfrastructure Engineer
Research Support Service
Division of Information Technology
University of Missouri Columbia

Panel Topic: "Women In HPC - Great Plains Network Chapter"

Slides:   PDF

Panel Abstract

Introducing a Midwest Women in HPC chapter, our goals and future prospects.

Biography

Christina Roberts is simultaneously a user support technician for the clusters Lewis and Clark and a graduate student of Bioinformatics focus, both at the University of Missouri-Columbia. Her background is in Genomics and programming, and she has found fulfillment with her career in assisting users and getting them comfortable navigating MU's systems via Linux. She is a CyberAmbassador and a Carpentries instructor as well.

Patrick Skubic
Patrick Skubic

Professor Emeritus of Physics and Astronomy
Homer L. Dodge Department of Physics & Astronomy
University of Oklahoma

Panel Topic: "It Was 20 Years Ago Today: OSCER Then and Now"

Panel Abstract

OSCER was founded on August 31 2001. In this panel, OSCER users from the early days talk about what OSCER was like then, how OSCER has evolved, and what impact OSCER has had.

Biography

Coming soon

Louis J. Wicker
Louis J. Wicker

Senior Research Meteorologist
NOAA National Severe Storms Laboratory
Chief Scientist
NSSL Warn-on-Forecast Program
Affiliate Professor
School of Meteorology
University of Oklahoma

Panel Topic: "It Was 20 Years Ago Today: OSCER Then and Now"

Panel Abstract

OSCER was founded on August 31 2001. In this panel, OSCER users from the early days talk about what OSCER was like then, how OSCER has evolved, and what impact OSCER has had.

Biography

Coming soon


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