Organization: Lawrence Berkeley National Lab
Projects: Understanding the Impact of HPC Center Energy Usage on Low-income and Minority Populations
Where did you grow up?
Indiana, Tennessee, and Ohio
What’s your field of study and how did you get into that field?
My field of study was astrophysics. From a young age I knew that I wanted to work in science somehow, and I was particularly interested in astronomy. I studied physics as an undergraduate because that seemed like a good foundation for a lot of jobs in science. In graduate school I focused on astrophysics, and that was when I got my first supercomputer account so that I could simulate observations of exploding stars, supernovae.
What fascinates you about HPC?
HPC gives an edge to people who work with simulations and data. It gives you the ability to process or analyze bigger data sets than you otherwise could. It’s about both getting more compute power, and more powerful compute to solve complex problems in less time. It’s an exciting field with new developments all the time, and the people I’ve met through HPC come from all kinds of backgrounds and career paths. They make great co-workers and friends.
What’s your current title and what do you do?
I’m a Senior Computing Engineer in the Programming Environments and Models Group at NERSC. I’ve worked on making higher level languages like Python and Julia first class citizens in HPC. I’ve worked with early-career staff to adapt data-intensive science applications for new supercomputer architectures. My primary technical responsibility at NERSC is the deployment of Jupyter on our supercomputers — over 1000 users per month use Jupyter on our systems.
What energy topic is most important to you and why?
Equitable access to reliable, affordable, and clean energy for everyone. Vulnerable populations should not bear a disproportionate environmental cost associated with the generation and distribution of energy.