HPCwire's TOP PEOPLE AND ORGANIZATIONS TO WATCH

FEATURES AND COMMENTARY

02/15/02

As we roll into 2002, we have been thinking of some of the more interesting and colorful people and organizations in HPC to keep an eye on. From a whimsical perspective, here are some of the names we came up with: our "2002 Watch List for HPC."

Larry Smarr - Director, Cal-(IT)2. Although most may argue that Larry is out of HPC, he is after all just a stone's throw away from SDSC, and he's as passionate as ever about the latest technology -- not to mention that he's a creative guy with lots of money to play with.

Bob Borchers - CTO, Maui Supercomputing Center. For many years Bob was one of the main people at the NSF and had a real impact on who got the big NSF money. No longer in the role he previously had, Bob now spends part of his time in Washington DC and the rest (most) of his time in Maui, and his wardrobe screams of the change.

Richard Hirsh - Division Director (acting), Advanced Computational Infrastructure and Research (CISE/ACIR). The new guy with principal say on who gets the big NSF money.

Fran Berman - Director, San Diego Supercomputer Center and NPACI. She is making lots of changes in all areas of her aegis. Within the year we will have better insight as to the impact of her changes and the strength of her vision.

Roscoe Giles - Prof of Computer Engineering at Boston U, Exec Director for the Institute for African-American E-Culture and General Chair SC02 - the first African American in the role. How can you not like this guy? His genuine warmth and dedication to his profession enters the room five minutes before he does.

Chris Johnson, Director Sci Computing Imaging Institute, Univ Utah - We first met Dr. Johnson at the Smithsonian/Computerworld awards banquet where he was a nominee. He didn't win, but that has not slowed him down a bit. He's a man with vision... graphics that is.

Mike Vildibill - Program Director High End Computing and Communications, San Diego Supercomputer Center. Mike is the backbone in their big TeraGrid project, setting the direction for Grid computing and the future of high performance information technology infrastructure; founder of CalNGI; and board member of CENIC. Mike's outstanding stealth involvement in HPC is rising to the top of many radar screens.

Dona Crawford - Associate Director Computations at Lawrence Livermore National Lab. After more than 20 years at Sandia National Labs, Dona is clearly ready to push forth her agenda in HPC. She is responsible for LLNL's critical computing enterprise, including the ASCI White. Her leadership as general chair of SC97 was said to be one of the best in this conference series.

Hans Meuer - Prof computer science University of Mannheim, general manager of Prometeus GmbH and general chairman of ISC2002 in Heidelberg. In 1986, he became co-founder and organizer of the first Mannheim Supercomputer Conference, which has been held annually ever since. In 1993, along with Erich Strohmaier and Jack Dongarra, Hans started the TOP500. The success of his conference and the Top 500 may easily earn him the title of "Mr HPC Europe".

John O'Callaghan - Doing big systems down under. Director Australian Partnership for Advanced Computing (APAC) a partnership of seven organizations involving most Australian universities and CSIRO Australia, the country's largest scientific and industrial research agency. It's time for HPC to keep an eye on Australia!

Bob Bishop, Chairman & CEO, SGI - Bob is the man the SGI Board brought back to turn the company around -- no small feat, and he seems to be doing it. Product strategy is solid, morale is strong, and there's great focus throughout the company. Stock is currently at $3, that may not sound like much but it's a 900% increase since he initiated his turn around campaign. (Stock went down to .31 cents early Summer of 2001.)

Jim Rottsolk, Chairman, Cray Inc - He is the man behind many of the clever Cray moves: Tera's Cray acquisition, the NEC/SX deal. Jim and his company have many challenges ahead that will be very interesting to follow indeed.

Debra Goldfarb - 'The' HPC analyst! As Group Vice President of Worldwide Server Research for IDC, Debra Goldfarb specializes in high-performance and data intensive computing segments. She researches and analyzes traditional supercomputing technology and markets, as well as the impact and influence of these technologies on commercial markets. If you need to know something about the business of high performance computing, Debra and her team will know the answer, or where to get it! Now, the trick is, actually getting Deb on the phone. Talk about being in demand!

Intel - they're back! The HPC world seems to be gravitating toward Intel. (ok, maybe we're being a bit hyperbolic, but it really seems that way..). Itanium... Prestonia... McKinley... Pentium... now where did we put that English to Intel dictionary?

Tony Hey - Head of the Parallel and Distributed Computing Research Group, head of the Department of Electronics and Computer Science at the University of Southampton, chairman and co-founder of the Parallel Applications Centre (PAC). This vetran HPC illuminary is also heading up the UK grid project. With significant government support (~$180m over 3 years), this grid project is easily one of the largest in Europe.

HP - The Top 500 list updates twice a year. In the first release of 2001, HP had 41 installations listed. When the list was released just before SC01 in November, HP installation count jumped to 153 spots on the Top 500! Can you say Superdome!

John Reynders - VP Info Systems Celera Genomics. Anything Celera does is fun to watch, and John is the man behind the machines. He's from HPC, and he uses it. Prior to joining Celera, John worked at Sun Microsystems, Inc. in their HPC area and at Los Alamos National Laboratory, where among other things he managed the largest dedicated unclassified supercomputer in the United States.