Faces of HPC | Diversity in HPC

Andrew Turner

Andy was the first in his family to attend university and now works at EPCC at the University of Edinburgh as a Project Manager. He is involved in various projects with HPC facilities, including ARCHER, DiRAC and PRACE. His work includes managing teams, writing scripts, and offering user support. Find out more about Andrew Turner…
Michael Ruggiero

Michael Ruggiero is currently an assistant professor at the University of Vermont in the Department of Chemistry. There, he leads his research group which is focused on joining together experimental and theoretical results. He uses HPC to research the movement of atoms and molecules in a material at terahertz frequencies. HPC allows him and his team to model complex materials which helps them to understand the movement even more. Find out more about Michael Ruggiero…
Edith Clarke

Edith Clarke was a pioneer for women in technology and computing. Clarke was not only the first woman to be be a Professor of Electrical Engineering at the University of Texas at Austin, but also the first woman to earn an MSc from MIT, the first woman to work for General Electric as an Engineer and in 1916 become the first woman to present a paper to the American Institute of Electrical Engineers. Although her work has had most influence in electrical engineering, one of her most influential achievements was in the design of a calculator that provided faster processing than previous ‘human’ computers. Find out more about Edith Clarke…
Clarence “Skip” Arthur Ellis

Clarence Ellis was the first African American to obtain a PhD in computer science (1969). Born in Chicago, USA, to a poor family, he went to college and discovered a passion for computers. Ellis invented Officetalk, the first system that enabled people to collaborate from distance and was Emeritus Professor of Computer Science and Cognitive Science at the University of Colorado at Boulder. Find out more about Clarence “Skip” Arthur Ellis…
Amy Prager

Prof. Amy Beth Prager is an applied mathematician whose research focuses on improving gender (and other forms of) diversity within STEM. She is ABD from Teachers College, Columbia University where she studied university based intervention programs designed to increase female participation in STEM. While at Columbia University she was an Exchange Scholar in mathematics at Princeton University. Find out more about Amy Prager…
Catherine Woodford

Catherine Woodford is a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Toronto in Ontario, Canada. Her work focuses on binary black hole simulations, exoplanet ice models and atmosphere simulation. Find out more about Catherine Woodford…
Maneula Campanelli

Manuela Campanelli is the Director of the Center for Computational Relativity and Gravitation at the Rochester Institute of Technology and is known for her ground-breaking work on numerical simulation of the merging characteristics of binary black holes with supercomputers. Find out more about Maneula Campanelli…
Dame Stephanie Shirley

Dame Stephanie ‘Steve’ Shirley is an information technology pioneer and philanthropist. Shirley was born in Dortmund, Germany and was placed in foster care during the Second World War after arriving at a refugee camp unaccompanied by her parents. In 1962 Shirely founded Freelance Programmers, with the goal of creating job opportunities for women with dependents. Find out more about Dame Stephanie Shirley…
Martin Rüfenacht

Martin Rüfenacht is a Ph.D student in the School of Informatics at the University of Edinburgh. Having completed an MPhys in computational physics, but taking on HPC courses during his final year, Martin realised moved into studying how to improve the performance of MPI. Find out more about Martin Rüfenacht…
Tai Duc Bui

Tai Duc Bui is currently a chemical PhD student in the department of Chemical Engineering at University College London. There, he researches interfacial phenomena and uses HPC to conduct molecular modelling and simulations at microscopic and macroscopic levels. Find out more about Tai Duc Bui…
Minna Palmroth

Minna Palmroth is a Professor of Computational Space Science at the University of Helsinki investigating near Earth space. With the help of supercomputers Minna and her team are able to understand how small-scale physics influences the entirety of near Earth space. Find out more about Minna Palmroth…
Margaret Hamilton

Margaret Hamilton was a NASA software engineer who worked on programming code for most of the Apollo missions' software. During the landing procedure for the Apollo 11 mission, it was her code that allowed the on-board computer to process which tasks were of greatest importance, saving the moon landing. Find out more about Margaret Hamilton…
Sophie Wilson

Sophie Wilson is a computer scientist, who designed the first computer sold by a British company, Acorn aa, well as the programming language the computer used. Find out more about Sophie Wilson…
Judea Pearl

Judea Pearl is a recipient of the ACM Turing award for his work developing the probabilistic approach in artificial intelligence and the Bayesian networks. Find out more about Judea Pearl…
Katherine Johnson

Katherine Coleman Goble Johnson is a mathematician who worked at NASA for 30 years, contributing to the early application of digital electronic computers and space missions, such as calculating the trajectory for Project Mercury and Apollo 11. Find out more about Katherine Johnson…
Larisa Stoltzfus

Larisa Stoltzfus is a Ph.D student in the School of Informatics at the University of Edinburgh, bringing together her physics and computer science backgrounds with her love for HPC. Find out more about Larisa Stoltzfus…
Clair Barrass

Clair currently works at EPCC at the University of Edinburgh, providing administrative support for HPC user training. She earned her BSc in Computer Science from the University of Edinburgh, and has taught Computing Science in several high schools around Edinburgh and the Lothians. Find out more about Clair Barrass…
Mark E. Dean

Mark Dean is an American inventor and Computer Engineer and is the first African American to become an IBM fellow; he has invented three out of nine IBM's patents when creating the first Personal Computer, the first colour PC monitor being one of them. Find out more about Mark E. Dean…
Gabriele C. Sosso

Gabriele C. Sosso is an Assistant Professor in Computational Chemistry at the University of Warwick. There, he researches the effect of water freezing into ice in biological matter. The formation of ice is important in many different fields such as atmospheric science and cryopreservation, so he uses HPC regularly to try and solve the problem of how and why ice forms – by means of atomistic simulations. Find out more about Gabriele C. Sosso…
Guido Falk von Rudorff

Guido Falk von Rudorff is a postdoctoral researcher at Universität Basel in Switzerland. He completed his PhD at the University College London in the department of Physics and Astronomy, and now works on methods to reduce the computational effort required to predict molecular properties. Find out more about Guido Falk von Rudorff…
Fiona Reid

Fiona works at EPCC at the University of Edinburgh (UK). In addition to teaching MSc courses, she is works on projects such as the Intel Parallel Computing Centre optimizing the C2PK code. Find out more about Fiona Reid…
Jesmin Jahan Tithi

Jesmin Jahan Tithi is an HPC Software Architect at the Platform Architecture and Performance Team at Intel Corporation. Jesmin previously completed a Ph.D. on “Engineering and high performance parallel algorithms with applications to bioinformatics” at Stony Brook University, New York, USA. Find out more about Jesmin Jahan Tithi…
Ben Eagan

Ben Eagan is the High Performance Computing Developer for Geosoft, a geophysics software company. Growing up with a love for the outdoors has provided Ben with a unique and creative approach to problem solving in HPC. Find out more about Ben Eagan…
Frauke Gräter

Bioscientist Dr. Frauke Gräter of the Heidelberg Institute for Theoretical Studies and University of Heidelberg was awarded the second annual PRACE Ada Lovelace Award for HPC at PRACEdays17 in Barcelona last month. Using advanced supercomputing techniques to reverse-engineer the mysteries of nature, Gräter is on the vanguard of the exciting field of materials science. As leader of the molecular biomechanics group at the Heidelberg Institute for Theoretical Studies, Gräter runs advanced computational techniques on some of Europe’s largest supercomputers to study how mechanical forces impact bio-compatible materials, like blood, silk and nacre (the iridescent substance commonly known as mother of pearl). Her project, “Micromechanics of Biocomposite Materials,” was awarded 11.5 million core hours on the Hermit supercomputer (a precursor to “Hazel Hen” at the High Performance Supercomputer Center Stuttgart) by PRACE under the 9th Call for Proposals for Project Access. Find out more about Frauke Gräter…
Nguyen Anh Khoa Doan

Anh Khoa is a Ph.D candidate at the University of Cambridge where he is investigating turbulent flows. His work, using ARCHER, the UK National Supercomputer, recently won him one of the UK-USA travel grants awarded for outstanding work using ARCHER to early career scientists in the UK to help build UK/US collaborations. Find out more about Nguyen Anh Khoa Doan…
Samantha Ahern

Samantha Ahern is a Learning Technology Project Officer at University College London (UCL), having studied computer science and worked in secondary education for 8.5 years. Find out more about Samantha Ahern…
Alan Stokes

Alan Stokes is a post-doctoral scientist at the university of Manchester. Coming from a background in information management and artificial intelligence, Alan has recently moved into HPC by using his software development skills to turn the SpiNNaker platform and software stack into a low-powered alternative to the traditional supercomputer. Find out more about Alan Stokes…
Admiral Grace Murray Hopper

‘Amazing Grace’ Hopper is known not only for writing the code for the Mark 1, but for her major contributions towards one of the first universal software languages, COBOL, and for revolutionizing computers as commercially accessible. Find out more about Admiral Grace Murray Hopper…
Zoe Cournia

Dr Zoe Cournia was the first recipient of the PRACE Ada Lovelace Award in 2016. Having come into computing via a Chemistry degree, Zoe is passionate about communicating science, and in particular that science is for everyone (and that it isn’t as hard as it might at first appear!). Find out more about Zoe Cournia…
Mary Coombs

Mary Coombs was born and raised in London and went on to become the first woman to work on commercial computers. In 1953 Mary not only became the only woman to work on the J. Lyon’s & Co. machine, but also the only non-mathematics graduate having little interest in the subject and completing a degree in French and History but having little interest in the subject. Find out more about Mary Coombs…
Joan Clarke

Joan Clarke worked closely with Alan Turing in ‘Hut 8’ at Bletchley Park - made famous for the work deciphering the Enigma Ciphers. Clarke’s personal contributions to the work is still largely unknown due to the secrecy of the work, although she was appointed MBE in 1947 for her work during World War Two. Find out more about Joan Clarke…
John West

John West is the Director of Strategic Initiatives at the Texas Advanced Computing Center. He was SC16 General Chair, and introduced Diversity as a key strategic initiative to the Supercomputing conference series for the first time. John is also Vice Chair of ACM SIGHPC. Find out more about John West…
Douglas Rayner Hartree

Douglas Hartree introduced the use of both analog and digital computers to solve a range of complex physical problems algorithmically, such as a numeric solution to Schrödinger’s equation in Physics. Find out more about Douglas Rayner Hartree…
Ivan Langella

Ivan Langella is a Lecturer in engineering at Loughborough University (previously research associate at Cambridge University). in engineering. There, he researches thermo-fluid science, with a focus on reducing emissions from industrial & aero gas turbines. He uses HPC to predict the combusting flow field inside industrial & aero gas turbines and to research improving the efficiency of engines. Find out more about Ivan Langella…
Eilidh Troup

Eilidh has a background in genetics but moved to working in HPC after realising that she didn’t like lab work and that she wanted to do something more interesting than basic programming. Eilidh has a daughter that she is encouraging to embrace science and programming. Find out more about Eilidh Troup…
Craig Morris

In June 2015, Craig returned as a systems developer for EPCC in the School of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Edinburgh. He is currently working on two projects for EPCC - addressing the challenge of energy-efficient use of parallel technologies in HPC within the ADEPT project and developing a highly secure medical research HPC system for the Farr Institute. Find out more about Craig Morris…
Manos Farsarakis

Manos Farsarakis is an Applications Consultant at EPCC, the Scottish Supercomputing Centre at the University of Edinburgh. Prior to working in EPCC Manos completed an MSc in High Performance Computing, also at EPCC, during which time we his team won the Student Cluster Competition at ISC 2014 by breaking the world record for the fastest low-energy cluster at a competition. Find out more about Manos Farsarakis…
Gavin Pringle

Gavin works at EPCC at the University of Edinburgh as an Applications Consultant. Some of his current projects include ARCHER’s Computational Science and Engineering support team, managing the FORTISSIMO User Support Helpdesk, and working with the Software Sustainability Institute. Find out more about Gavin Pringle…
Alan Turing

Alan Turing is considered the father of theoretical computer science, creating the ‘Turing Machine’ used in World War 2 to crack the German Enigma codes. He would later work on developing the first universal programmable machine, the ACE, and even began foundational investigations into artificial intelligence, creating his well-known ‘Turing Test.’ Find out more about Alan Turing…
Michelle Sahai

Michelle Sahai is a Senior Lecturer in Biomedical Sciences at the University of Roehampton, London, UK. Michelle’s first introduction to HPC was during her undergraduate degree and she is now using HPC resources to simulate membrane proteins. Find out more about Michelle Sahai…
Kathleen Booth

Kathleen Booth was one of the first computer programmers to develop an assembly language, helping computer programming move from inputting 0s and 1s for the machine to interpret. Booth helped design and was the principle programmer on three early computers: ARC, SEC and APE(X)C, which were constructed by Andrew Booth at Birkbeck College. Find out more about Kathleen Booth…
Judith B. Rommel

Judith Rommel is a Research Fellow in Chemistry at the University of Cambridge. Having always been interested in computation and numerical methods Judith started using HPC during her PhD studies in computational biochemistry. Find out more about Judith B. Rommel…
Martin Fitzner

Martin is a PhD candidate in computational physics at University College London. He studies heterogenous ice nucleation (the process by which water freezes into ice) and uses HPC clusters to follow the freezing process from a molecule’s eye view in the computer as everything happens very quickly. Find out more about Martin Fitzner…
Zhong-Nan Wang

Zhong-Nan Wang is a research associate in the Department of Engineering at the University of Cambridge. He develops CFD methods for simulations of aero-engine noise and he aims to reduce the noise created by them for future aeroplanes. He received “best use of ARCHER” award due to this work using HPC. He also created the developed algorithm that has been incorporated in the Rolls-Royce CFD solver to improve the turbulent eddy resolving capability. Find out more about Zhong-Nan Wang…
Zhi Chen

Zhi Chen is a research associate at the University of Cambridge. He researches Combustion Instability Simulations and he looks at turbulent combustion - the impact chemistry and flow physics have on each other. This is a huge phenomenon which changes the flow inside the engine and can cause problems. He uses HPC to perform massively parallel computations of turbulent flames and their interaction with acoustics inside gas turbine combustors. Find out more about Zhi Chen…
Cian Booth

Cian Booth came to HPC while studying Theoretical Physics at Trinity College Dublin. Now working for Oracle, testing the performance of multithreaded machines, Cian’s background in Physics provides him with a non-traditional HPC perspective. Find out more about Cian Booth…
Ida Rhodes

Ida Rhodes is considered one of the UNIVAC 1 pioneers. She helped develop the C-10 language, used in programming the UNIVAC 1 for the census bureau, and is also well known for her groundbreaking work on computer translations of natural languages. Find out more about Ida Rhodes…
Neil Chue Hong

Neil works at EPCC at the University of Edinburgh (UK). He is the Director of the Software Sustainability Institute, facilitating the use of software and computer infrastructure to researchers in the UK. Neil seeks to understand which people are using computing, how they’re using it and what is it that they would need to go further? Find out more about Neil Chue Hong…
Sunita Chandrasekaran

Sunita Chandrasekaran works at the University of Delaware, Newark, Delaware, USA as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Computer Science and Information Sciences. Her work focuses on high-level programming models and looking at these models can help migrate legacy code to current and future HPC platforms. Find out more about Sunita Chandrasekaran …
Ada Lovelace

Ada Lovelace, a prodigy of mathematics and logic, is credited as the first computer programmer. Her work with Charles Babbage on the Analytical Engine would produce designs for a computer, and a detailed account of how to code it, almost a century before the first machine was built. Find out more about Ada Lovelace…
Tony Travis

Tony Travis is a post-doctoral researcher at the University of Aberdeen where he uses HPC in his work on GWAS (Genome-Wide Association Studies) to analyse millions of SNPs (Single Nucleotide Polymorphisms). Tony is particularly interested in the democratisation of HPC using COTS (Commodity Off The Shelf) hardware and in emerging 'many-core' MIMD (Multiple Instruction, Multiple Data) low-latency mesh-connected processors such as the 'Epiphany' used in Parallella, which is a kickstarter project to develop a low-cost parallel SBC (Single Board Computer) like the Raspberry Pi. Find out more about Tony Travis…
Karen Spärck

Karen Spärck Jones started he career in the 1950s as a school teacher but quickly moved into computer science. Throughout her career Spärck campaigned to improve the representation of women. She has received numerous accolades during her carer including the BCS Lovelace Medal in 2007. Find out more about Karen Spärck…
Charles Babbage

Charles Babbage is known as ‘the father of computing’ having designed the first computers, the ‘Difference Engine’, the ‘Analytical Engine’ and the ‘Second Difference Engine’. Find out more about Charles Babbage…