Distinguished Computer Science Colloquium

Student Research in High Performance Computing

Bob Robey, PhD
Los Alamos National Lab

Abstract: The field of high-performance computing can be a rewarding and challenging career. The United States has long been a leader in the field of high-performance computing and it has been a cornerstone of our national competitiveness. It is exciting work and is always presenting new challenges as computing hardware pushes the boundary of shrinking transistor size, power and heat. As the hardware speedup slows, new designs have become more complex. Now, even more the key to future improvements is reliant on software developers. But what can students contribute to this field? Students can bring innovation and disruptive new ideas that can make a dramatic impact. Computing and parallel computing in particular are young fields where there is an opportunity to make a difference. I'll give some examples of prior student work that I have been involved in. I'll then discuss how to get a start in the field and provide resources to learn more.

Bob Robey is a Research Scientist in the Eulerian Applications group at Los Alamos National Laboratory. He is the lead author of CLAMR mini-app, an open source adaptive mesh refinement shallow water hydrocode. Some of his interests include parallel algorithm research and computational physics methods research. He has over 20 years of experience in shock wave research including the operation of large explosively driven shock tubes and writing compressible fluid dynamics codes. He helped establish the High Performance Computing Center at the University of New Mexico and the Maui High Performance Computing Center. He has been one of the key contributors to the 2011-2014 X Division Summer Workshop program. He is currently Board President of the New Mexico Supercomputing Challenge, a high school and middle school computational modeling program that has been going for 26 years.

Date: Monday November 8, 2021
Time: 2:30pm MDT
Room: Speare 19; Zoom https://zoom.us/j/92386679162, Meeting ID 923 8667 9162, tel. +13126266799,,92386679162#