IHPCSS2022: Meet the Staff members!

Meet the mentors, returning mentors and other staff members of IHPCSS'22!

Name and Affiliation	Bio	Mentoring topics
Weronika Filinger (Mentoring committee, presenter, group mentor)	Hi, I'm Weronika. I work at EPCC - a supercomputing centre running the UK national service, which is part of the University of Edinburgh. I'm an HPC applications consultant and the programme director for the online MSc in HPC and HPC with Data Science, so my job is a weird mixture of technical tasks, teaching and community building, and an academic programme management. I definitely work to live, not live to work! I have way too many hobbies and not enough time, which essentially means I'm rubbish at all of them, but hey I enjoy them anyway! I'm happy to talk about work-life balance, networking (inside and outside of your organisation), getting involved in the HPC community, mental resilience, working at a university as a non-academic and lots of other random topics.	work-life balance, networking, getting involved in the HPC community, mental resilience, working at a university as a non-academic
Elsa Gonsiorowski (Mentoring committee, group mentor)	Hi, I’m Elsa Gonsiorowski. I work for Lawrence Livermore National Lab in CA. I’m currently working remotely from RI with a mostly in-person team. I support LLNL’s HPC users with a special focus on I/O, including file systems, application-level libraries, and middleware. I received my Ph.D. in Computer Science from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, NY in 2016. I attended the IHPCSS in 2015 as a student and in 2016 as a returning mentor. Since the pandemic started I’ve gotten pregnant and had my first child in late 2020. I’m happy to chat with students about software engineering practices, work-life balance, and burnout. I am also happy to chat about imposter syndrome and be your personal cheerleader.	software engineering practices work-life balance burnout imposter syndrome
Scott Callaghan (Mentoring committee, presenter, group mentor)	Hello, I'm Scott. I'm a Computer Scientist at the Southern California Earthquake Center, which is based in Los Angeles, but I actually work remotely from Reno, Nevada. I use scientific workflows to simulate hundreds of thousands of earthquakes, with the goal of quantifying seismic hazard around California, which involves both large parallel jobs and lots of small serial jobs. I have a 7-year-old and a 3-year-old (who are at the Summer School with me), and I'm happy to talk about balancing family and work responsibilities, moving to support a partner's job, permanent remote work, and figuring out your next career step.	work-life balance family working remotely next career steps
Ilya Zhukov (Mentoring committee, presenter, group mentor)	Hello, I'm Ilya Zhukov. I work as an HPC application analyst at the Jülich Supercomputing Centre (JSC) at Forschungszentrum Jülich in Germany. The main part of my work is focused on general technical support, performance analysis and tuning of HPC applications. I also teach on the topics of HPC system handling, performance analysis, and the use of performance analysis tools. I would be happy to talk with IHPCSS attendees about working at the HPC centre, current and future trends in HPC, dealing with difficult people, and living and working abroad.	working at the HPC centre current and future trends in HPC dealing with difficult people living and working abroad
Kaley Brauer (Returning mentor)	Hi, I'm Kaley. I'm a computational astrophysicist whose work focuses on galaxy formation and stellar explosions. I am finishing up my PhD in Physics at MIT and recently have been a visiting research fellow at Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. My work involves developing high-performance hydrodynamic simulation code which models astrophysical systems across dozens of nodes. I'm happy to talk to students about deciding next career steps (as I'm actively working on this myself), work-life balance (I wrote a whole comedic paper analyzing my productivity in 2020-2021), dealing with bias, and more!
Maria Guadalupe Barrios Sazo (Returning mentor, group mentor)	Hi I am Lupe, a Research Software Engineer at the University of Oslo, working on solar physics. During my PhD, I emphasized in astrophysical fluid simulations, adding MHD capabilities to our code and contributed with the GPU porting efforts. I will be happy to talk with students about their interest in computational sciences, career paths, living in different places, experiences during university.
Sahil Chhabra (Returning mentor, group mentor)	Hello, My name is Sahil Chhabra and I finished my Ph.D. in 2019 in Chemistry and Scientific Computing from University of Michigan. Thereafter, I spent 1.5 years at a startup as an AI Research Scientist and now I am working as a Computational Chemistry Research Scientist at a pharmaceutical company. I use Machine Learning and deep learning techniques for small molecule drug discovery. I am happy to talk about transition from academia to industry, differences in working for a start-up vs. big pharma and how to translate your Ph.D. skills for the job market.
Anjali Tripathi (Returning mentor, group mentor)	Anjali Tripathi is an astrophysicist at the intersection of science and policy at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL). She serves as JPL's government affairs officer and NASA's first Exoplanet Exploration Program Science Ambassador. Tripathi is a Research Associate of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA) for her work on planet formation and evolution. At the CfA, she has modeled protoplanetary disks and developed the first 3D simulations of exoplanets evaporating due to extreme atmospheric heating. Her interest in planet evolution extends to current work in Earth science and climate change at JPL.
Pawel Janowski (returning mentor, group mentor)	After switching from philosophy to biophysics, I completed my PhD in Computational Biology and Molecular Biophysics at Rutgers University where I worked on molecular dynamics simulations of crystals. I've since worked in industry as a software engineer, data scientist and most recently ML engineer. Ask me about industry/academia, staying confident and optimistic during grad school, the outdoors (especially climbing, skiing, hiking) and travel, and why the future is bright.
Toshiyuki Imamura (group mentor)	I hope to share with you my experience of a large eigenvalue calculation library using the supercomputer Fugaku, which enables 1 million dimensions, and the HPL-AI benchmark, which achieved 2 EFLOPS.
Klaus Dolag (presenter, group mentor)	Key interests: Computational Astrophysics, Magnetic Fields, Cosmology, Clusters of Galaxies, Hydro-dynamical Simulations, Galaxy Evolution, AGNs
John Towns (group mentor)	I have taken a non-traditional career path including astrophysics and astrophysical simulation in general relativity, networked/distributed applications, research infrastructure builder, and community builder. My path has trended toward developing the enabling environments for science.
James Willis (group mentor)	Hi, I'm James. I work as a Scientific Applications Analyst for SciNet at the University of Toronto in Canada. My work mainly focuses on user support, parallelisation techniques, performance analysis, parallel code debugging, system benchmarking, software libraries and teaching. I'm happy to discuss maintaining a healthy work/life balance, moving to a new country, working in industry and planning your future career.
Hermann Lederer (group mentor)	By education, I am an experimental biophysicist with a PhD from TUM. My job at the HPC centre of the Max Planck Society in Garching close to Munich in Germany gave me insight into all relevant areas and roles. Therefore preferred topics for discussion could include "working in an HPC center"
Yohai Meiron (group mentor)	I am currently a researcher and scientific applications analyst at SciNet, the University of Toronto’s supercomputing centre. I am also a GPU specialist for SOSCIP, a Southern Ontario R&D consortium bringing advanced computing technologies and expertise to industry-academia partnerships. My background is in physics and astrophysics, and my passion is applying computational techniques to scientific problems, through programming and visualization.
Danny Silver (presenter, group mentor)	Hi, I am Danny. I am a former Director of the School of Computer Science at Acadia University, and am now the Director of the Acadia Institute for Data Analytics. I worked for 13 years in industry before returning to university to obtain a PhD in Computer Science. I have taught courses and completed research primarily in the areas of machine learning, data science and software engineering over the last 26 years. Along the way, I have supervised and mentored over 200 honours and graduate students in time management, project management, leadership, and their oral and written communication skills. These areas are probably where I can be of most assistance beyond my knowledge and experience of machine learning and data science. I and my best friend and partner in life have three grown daughters, all of whom have or are completing university degrees. We live in Nova Scotia, Canada in the heart of the Annapolis Valley.
Takemasa Miyoshi (presenter, group mentor)	I have a relatively unique career (civil servant in Japan, Ph.D. completed in 2 years in USA, non-tenured and tenure-track professorship in USA, termed and indefinite-term research leadership in Japan) and would be happy to discuss various choices for career development.
Takeshi Terao (group mentor)	My research is in numerical linear algebra. In particular, I deal with mixed precision and high precision calculations, rounding error analysis, and verification calculations.
Erik Lindahl (presenter, group mentor)	Hi, I'm Erik. I'm professor of Biophysics in Stockholm, Sweden, and lead a fairly large research environment comprising some ~30 people working on everything from software development (GROMACS, RELION) to method development, applied simulations as we as a wet-lab team that try to understand how ion channels and other molecules inside our cells regulate the nervous system. I'm also vice dean of chemistry and have lead several large academic & infrastructure initiatives in the EU, and would be happy to chat both about opportunities and challenges either as faculty or infrastructure positions. Nowadays I often sit on the other side of the table and evaluate/rank candidates, and I can also share a bit of my thinking what employers and universities are looking for when we hire.
Ramses van Zon (presenter, group mentor)	Hi, I'm Ramses van Zon. I work at SciNet, the supercomputing centre at the University of Toronto in Canada, where I coordinate and take part in delivering workshops, courses, user group meetings, summer schools, and graduate courses. I also provide advice and support to users on topics such as code optimization, application porting, workflow, improving efficiency, and parallel programming. I once was a mathematical physicist, then moved to theoretical chemical physics, then to computational methods for molecular dynamics, and other things. I am happy to talk about changing countries, changing fields, as well as work-life balance.
Simon Wong (group mentor)	Hi my name is Simon Wong and I work at the Irish Centre for High-End Computing (ICHEC), the national HPC centre in Ireland. At ICHEC I manage our national HPC education and training programme which involves short courses, university teaching and student mentorships. With a background in genetics and bioinformatics I'm also involved in a number of projects in the biosciences at ICHEC, e.g. at the moment I lead a project in developing a national health data research platform. I'm happy to talk about juggling between different roles, changing career trajectories, and what it's like working at a HPC centre. Also more than happy to talk football (soccer) and any movie/tv show with zombies!
David Henty (presenter, group mentor)
Marcelo Ponce (presenter, group mentor)	Hello, I'm Marcelo! Although I work at the Department of Computer and Mathematical Sciences at the University of Toronto Scarborough and my academic formation is on Physics, I consider myself a computational scientist! Yes, please notice the difference with "computer scientist" I also spent quite some time working at SciNet, the supercomputer center at the University of Toronto. My work and research is mostly about applying computational methods and techniques to solve different type of problems. I also do a lot of teaching... I did my PhD working in astrophysics solving Einstein’s equations of General Relativity numerically, using supercomputers to simulate extreme scenarios, such as, multiple black holes and binary neutron star mergers. But I also had the chance to apply computational methods to other fields, like bioinformatics and data analysis. I am big fond of scientific visualizations and will be presenting the "Scientific Visualization" session.	software engineering, computational astrophysics, scientific visualization
Florian Berberich (group mentor, PRACE representative)	Hi, I am Florian Berberich. I am Operations Director at Partnership for Advanced Computing in Europe (PRACE) aisbl. I am working in Brussels in the PRACE office and I deal mainly with the scientific excellence driven Peer Review process, Project Management and Strategy. In October 2015 I became a member of the Board of Directors of PRACE aisbl. I also worked for the PRACE Project Management Office at Forschungszentrum Juelich - JSC, since 2008. I finished my PhD in Physics at the Technical University of Dresden in 2002 and worked as Post-Doc at the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility, France before I became assistant to the Board of Directors at Forschungszentrum Juelich in 2004. My interests are Peer Review, HPC in general and the European HPC ecosystem.
John Urbanic (presenter, group mentor)
John Cazes (presenter, group mentor)	Hello, I'm John Cazes. I'm the director of the HPC group at the Texas Advanced Computing Center (TACC). My group provides highh level support to HPC users. We help users optimize, debug, and manage their applications on TACC's HPC resources. We also spend quite a bit of time providing training and teaching courses to prepare the next generation of scientists and engineers for HPC. My background is in astrophysics and climate/weather ocean modeling. My primary research interests are advanced architectures and parallel I/O.
Tom Cheatham (presenter, group mentor)	Thomas Cheatham is a Professor in the Department of Medicinal Chemistry in the College of Pharmacy at the University of Utah. Since July 2014 he has also served as the Director of Research Computing and the Center for High Performance Computing (CHPC) in University Information Technology, reporting to the CIO. His research involves development and application of the GPU-optimized AMBER suite of molecular dynamics simulation and analysis programs with a focus on elucidating the conformational ensembles of nucleic acids using large ensembles of biomolecular simulations on HPCresources. He is involved nationally with a variety of research computing and data interests including XSEDE, RMACC, Campus Champions, Frontera Advisory Committee, Delta Advisory Commmittee, RCD Nexus, and is currently the Chair of the Campus Research Computing Consortium (CaRCC).
Orly Olter (presenter)
Erwin Laure (PRACE representative)
Dominik Ernst (presenter, mentor)	Hi, my name is Dominik Ernst. I am a PhD student at FAU Erlangen-Nürnberg, where I also did my Master's Degree, and the GPU expert at the national computing center NHR@FAU. My research combines analytic performance modelling for GPUs and automatic code analysis in support of code generation and kernel execution decisions. At the IHPCSS, I teach the GPU Performance Analysis Course.
Ludovic Capelli (Programming challenge coordinator)	Hi, I am a final year PhD student in the School of Informatics at the University of Edinburgh, in the United Kingdom. My research in the graph processing area; optimising the vertex-centric programming model without sacrificing its programmability. Regarding the IHPCSS, I run the programming challenge.
Christian Carbogno (presenter)	Hi, I’m Chris - a computational solid-state physicist that leads the “Heat and Charge Transport” group at the Fritz Haber Institute of the Max Planck Society in Berlin, Germany. My passion is developing, advancing, and accelerating novel first-principles methods, so to enable faster and better predictions in materials science. To achieve this goal, it is essential to reach the best possible code performance on today’s and tomorrow’s HPC architectures.	Ab initio methods, electronic-structure theory, solid-state theory, molecular dynamics, material science, quantum mechanics, equilibrium and non-equilibrium statistical thermodynamics applying for funding and early career progression
Frank Jenko (science talk presenter)
Julie Wernert (program evaluator)
Lizanne DeStefano (program evaluator)
Nana Anastasopoulou (local coordinator)
Valia Athanasaki (local coordinator)

Last modified: Monday, June 20, 2022, 1:15 AM