SC15 Breaks Exhibits and Attendance Records While in Austin, Texas

Noted science communicator and award-winning actor Alan Alda gives the SC15 Keynote Address in Austin, TX, where record-breaking attendance reached approximately  13,000 people.

 Media Contact: Brian Ban (773) 454-7423 or BrianBan@SC15Austin.com

Austin, TX - SC15, the 27th anniversary conference of high performance computing (HPC), networking, storage and analysis, celebrated the contributions of researchers and scientists - from those just starting their careers to those whose contributions have made lasting impacts.

The SC15 Exhibit Hall broke records in Austin, TX. (Click photo to enlarge.)

The conference drew a record-breaking 12,914+ registered attendees (as of data collected on 11/20) and featured a technical program spanning six days. The exhibit hall featured 343 exhibitors from industry, academia and research organizations from around the world.

Crowds rushed to the SC15 Exhibit Hall between engaging Technical Sessions.

“In a world of ever-growing, complex problems, high performance computing has a plethora of opportunities to impact lives across multiple fields,” said Jackie Kern, SC15 General Chair from the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana.

SC15 found its home in Austin, TX - pictured here at dawn.

She continued, “No longer is high performance computing reserved for only the biggest corporations in the world. It is now trickling down to smaller, medium-sized firms, which is only increasing its impact. This conference brings together the best research and industry minds in the world for one packed week of sharing ideas, networking, and education.”

SC15 General Chair Jackie Kern being interviewed by Austin-CBS affiliate KEYE in the Exhibit Hall.

According to Kern, the SC15 Exhibition was sold out and the industry-focused exhibit space was the largest to date in the history of the conference. The 217 industry-focused exhibits also marks a new SC15 record. In addition to record-breaking exhibit space, there were a total of 43 first-time exhibitors and 113 international exhibitors from 23 countries (outside the US).  In all, there was a total of approx. 137,000 net square feet of exhibit space and 343 industry and research organizations

SCinet - once again, the world's fastest conference computer network.

During the conference, Austin also became the hub for the world’s fastest conference computer network - SCinet (SC15’s custom network) which made 1.62 (16 100G + 2 10G) Terabits of bandwidth available to exhibitors and attendees.  The network featured 84 miles of fiber deployed throughout the convention center and $18 million in loaned equipment.  It was all made possible by 130 volunteers representing global organizations spanning academia, government and industry.

Noted science communicator and award-winning actor Alan Alda opened the SC15 Technical Program with a keynote speech focusing on the role of science in our society and the intersection of science and computing to a full house of approximately 3,000 people in Austin, Texas on November 17th.

Jeffrey S. Vetter, the SC15 Technical Program Chair, takes the stage.

The Technical Program again offered the highest quality in original HPC research. The SC workshops set a new record with more than 2,000 attendees. There were 10 Best Paper Finalists and 5 Gordon Bell Finalists. These submissions represent the best of the best in a wide variety of research topics in HPC.

Congrats to the 2015 Gordon Bell Prize Award winners. The team received their award at SC15 for using innovative algorithms & implicit solvers to realistically simulate current conditions of the Earth’s interior for the first time. Their work could herald a major step toward more accurately predicting earthquakes and volcanic eruptions.

Overall Stats on Tech Program Tracks:

•    75 Birds-of-a-Feathers
•    78 Papers
•    12 Panels
•    135 Posters  
•    41 Tutorials
•    42 Workshops
•    14 Invited Speakers
•    14 Doctoral Showcase Presentations
•    10 Emerging Technology Presentations

Intel executive Diane Bryant addresses the crowd at the HPC Matters Plenary.

For the second year, SC featured an opening “HPC Matters” plenary that this year was led by Diane Bryant, senior vice president and general manager of Intel’s Data Center Group, who discussed how next-generation supercomputers are transforming HPC.  She further identified exciting opportunities for advancing scientific research and discovery to deliver far-reaching impacts on society.

As part of this Plenary, Intel announced a $300,000 scholarship per-year for five years for women/minorities with STEM undergraduate degrees to fund fellowships for those pursuing PhD's degrees in computational and data science.  This commitment is in honor of Intel's third CEO Andrew Grove. 

The entire Plenary is available online and available by clicking here.

SC16 will be held next November 13th-18th in Salt Lake City, Utah.  For more details, click here.

About SC15
SC15, sponsored by ACM (Association for Computing Machinery) and IEEE Computer Society offers a complete technical education program and exhibition to showcase the many ways high performance computing, networking, storage and analysis lead to advances in scientific discovery, research, education and commerce. This premier international conference includes a globally attended technical program, workshops, tutorials, a world class exhibit area, demonstrations and opportunities for hands-on learning. For more information on SC15, please visit http://www.sc15.supercomputing.org/, or contact communications@info.supercomputing.org for more information.

About ACM
ACM, the Association for Computing Machinery www.acm.org, is the world’s largest educational and scientific computing society, uniting computing educators, researchers and professionals to inspire dialogue, share resources and address the field’s challenges. ACM strengthens the computing profession’s collective voice through strong leadership, promotion of the highest standards, and recognition of technical excellence. ACM supports the professional growth of its members by providing opportunities for life-long learning, career development, and professional.

Alan Alda Gives Inspiring Keynote to Open SC15 in Austin Today

Alan Alda gives the 2015 SC Keynote to more than 3,000 attendees on Nov. 17th in Austin. 

Noted science communicator and award-winning actor Alan Alda opened SC15 with keynote speech focusing on the role of science in our society and the intersection of science and computing to a full house of more than 3,000 people in Austin, Texas on Nov. 17.

SC15 Chair Jackie Kern

“High performance computing has a transformational impact on science in our society,” comments SC15 general chair Jackie Kern, University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign. “For decades scientists and engineers have relied on high performance computing to advance the state of the art in diverse fields ranging from healthcare and automotive safety to renewable energy. Computing is now fully integrated into the scientific discovery process, an equal partner with theory and experiment in improving the quality of life for all members of our global society.

She continues, "Mr. Alda’s focus on communicating the benefits of science to the public—and how we can all do this more effectively—makes him uniquely positioned to help SC continue to bridge the gaps in science understanding and highlight our role in the discovery process.”

To view the write up in the Austin Business Journal, click here.

Mr. Alda--actor, writer, science advocate, and Visiting Professor at Stony Brook University—shared his passion for science communication and its importance, drawing on his personal experiences including his 11 years as host of the TV series Scientific American Frontiers.

Throughout his 40-year career, he has won seven Emmys, six Golden Globes, and three Directors Guild of America awards for directing. Alda also hosted the 2010 PBS mini-series The Human Spark and wrote Radiance: The Passion of Marie Curie, a play about the personal life of the great scientist who discovered radium. He teamed up with PBS again in 2013 for Brains on Trial, a neurological look at brains in the court room.

A recipient of the National Science Board’s Public Service Award, Alda is a visiting professor at and founding member of Stony Brook University’s Alan Alda Center for Communicating Science, where he helps develop innovative programs on how scientists communicate with the public. He is also on the Board of Directors of the World Science Festival.

SC15 General Chair Jackie Kern Previews the Conference and Exhibition

SC15 General Chair Jackie Kern

Following is a brief conversation with Jackie Kern, SC15 General Chair from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.  Since 2003, she has served as  a member of the SC planning committee and in 2007 she also served as SCinet Chair.  

At the University of Illinois, she is the Director of IT Shared Services where she represents her department on various campus IT initiatives and committees including leading the community in a consolidation of service effort and being the operations chair of the Data Center Shared Services co-location efforts on campus.   

In these efforts she oversees the development of standards, procedures and policies related to data centers, identifies IT resources needed for current and future projects, and markets the services to campus. 
  

Describe how the “HPC Transforms” conference theme came to be this year?
Over the last three decades, HPC has become increasingly important in manufacturing, weather forecasting, medicine, entertainment and many other facets of everyday life. You would be hard pressed to experience a “normal” day for the average citizen without encountering something that wasn’t impacted by HPC. 

Starting last year, the SC conference team launched a program called “HPC Matters” to highlight this impact. The program supports the creation of short videos that explore the use of HPC in improving daily life.

These videos are available at the SC15 video library. The program also supports public talks by industry luminaries, such as the SC HPC Matters Plenary.

For this year, we wanted to dive deeper into why it is important, and to do that we wanted to demonstrate how it transforms lives and the world around us.  We have put together these videos that demonstrate why it matters and how it transforms lives.

SC15 is returning to Austin, Texas for the first time since 2008 – what is it about Austin that makes it a good fit for the SC community?
Austin is fantastic because of the technology-centric community as well as the culture, food, people and music.  We feel this is a really good fit for our attendees and exhibitors. It gives them the right balance of fun and technical aptitude to spark the creativity, and offers a wide variety of opportunities to network and collaborate. And the city itself is also very warm and welcoming to our group.

The SC15 Mobile App.

For someone new to the community, what tips can you offer for tackling the immense Tech Program and the massive exhibition hall?
Plan ahead!  Quite frankly there is too much to see and do at an SC conference so you need to budget your time based on your areas of interests and priorities.  Your best bet is to get plugged into everything now – the website, blog, schedule, conference app, etc.

Start with the conference schedule on the website and go from there. Put a priority on not only learning, but also networking.  Some of the people you meet at an SC conference will impact your career for years to come.  The more people you meet the more opportunities you have to collaborate and get involved.  If you are new, go to one of the Information Booths – they are staffed by veteran attendees who are there to help you.

Also, you will want to download our enhanced mobile app and started getting organized for a very packed week in Austin.

This year's Exhibition is sold out and is expected to draw big crowds.

What are some of the top things you are looking forward to experiencing/attending at SC15? 
Very difficult question since there are so many great things to experience or participate in at an SC conference!  Some of the things that I’m looking forward to are the rich and dynamic Invited Talks, the HPC Matters Plenary with Intel’s Diane Bryant, and the Alan Alda Keynote. In addition we have an international Student Cluster Competition that is sure to be exciting.

Plus the show floor has more than 300 cutting-edge exhibitors and I love checking in with SCinet – the world’s fastest, custom-built computer network.  Then there is the incredibly robust Technical Program. Quite honestly, there is too much to list here.

SC student volunteers with Jeanine Cook, SC15 Student Programs Chair.

The student program went thru some modifications this year.  Can you explain what those were and how the changes have been received?
This year we merged every student program under one umbrella called Students@SC. This is an effort to make sure that we are encouraging the next generation of HPC professionals to be engaged in the community. It provides more opportunities for all the students that apply to be a part of SC. We encourage them to participate in many of the events, such as the Mentor-Protégé Program and Experiencing HPC for Undergraduates. 

We have arranged to bring in key people from across the community to speak about their experiences and encouraged the use of the community to continue to move HPC forward into a new and exciting era.  We are also focusing on diversity and making certain that all students are treated equal and offered the same opportunities for success. 

True success won’t be measured until after the conference once we see how it goes, but we are encouraged by those students who have applied to the program and their engagement thus far.  We are also working with an evaluation team to measure our success and will have those data points after SC15 is over.

Anything else knew this year that people should know about?
This year we have added an all-day track for Birds-of-a-Feather sessions.  There is so much demand for them and with the high volume of submissions, we are excited to introduce this all-day track.  Other exciting things are a much more robust mobile app and networking opportunities like the addition of Duckling – a new networking tool for conference attendees.

Intel's Diane Bryant - HPC Matters Plenary Speaker

What can people expect this year from the HPC Matters Plenary?
It will be amazing.  This year will feature Diane Bryant of Intel who was recently named by Fortune as one of the 51 most powerful women.   She will describe how next generation supercomputers are not only transforming HPC and the future of computing, but also society.  Plus, there is no fee to attend the session although a badge is required.  It is shaping up to be an entertaining session that is a must attend event for everyone - from novice to expert.

Describe the process and time involved for putting on such a big event.
Planning a conference of this quality and magnitude couldn't happen without a fantastic team behind me. Three years ago I was selected to be the SC15 General Chair and at that time I made a conscious choice to select the best of breed to make sure this event was spectacular.

Over the course of the last three years we have spent many phone calls, face-to-face meetings, site visits, and countless hours working towards providing the best possible experience for our attendees. One group in particular spends a considerable amount of time working towards providing the best and fastest computer network in the world for one week in November.

The SCinet team spends an enormous amount of volunteer time designing the custom network, gathering equipment donations from vendors, connecting equipment, working with providers to get connected to the right networks, and then sustaining the network for everyone at the conference.

In addition, our Technical Program team has worked diligently to evaluate the submissions and create a program that is second to none.  Truly it has been the most exciting, challenging, and rewarding three-year project of my career. I am honored to be a part of it.

What advice would you give someone looking to get involved in the SC volunteer community?
The SC community is always looking for dedicated volunteers. The best way to get involved is to come to one of the Information Booths at SC15.  We strive to have new faces as volunteers who are able to provide new perspectives and ideas to keep SC fresh and diverse. 

What needs to happen for you to judge SC15 as a successful event?
To me, the most important thing would be walking around the Austin Convention Center and witnessing the engagement in the collaboration that we expect to see at an SC Conference.  I hope attendees leave feeling that there is simply nowhere else on the planet that offers as much education, collaboration and networking as an SC Conference.  After all, we are attendees ourselves and that remains the ultimate goal!

SC15 Releases Video on How Berkeley Lab's Electrolyte Genome Project Could Be Battery Game-Changer

A new breakthrough battery—one that has significantly higher energy, lasts longer, and is cheaper and safer—will likely be impossible without a new material discovery. And a new material discovery could take years, if not decades, since trial and error has been the best available approach. But Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) scientist Kristin Persson says she can take some of the guesswork out of the discovery process with her Electrolyte Genome.

Think of it as a Google-like database of molecules. A battery scientist looking for a new electrolyte would specify the desired parameters and properties, and the Electrolyte Genome would return a short list of promising candidate molecules, dramatically speeding up the discovery timeline.
Click here to watch the video.

“This is just one of several compelling videos that SC15 will be releasing over the coming weeks to help describe how high performance computing is helping to transform society and have a tremendous positive impact on everyday life,” said Jackie Kern, SC15 Conference Chair from University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign.

According to Kern, It is also part of a three-year “HPC Matters” campaign that will be a big focus at the SC15 conference in Austin this November.  This includes a free plenary session led by Diane Bryant – one of Intel’s top executives and recently named to Fortune’s list of the 51 most powerful women.

Faster, Smarter, Better
Besides being faster and more efficient in screening out bad candidates, the Electrolyte Genome offers two other significant advantages to battery scientists. The first is that it could generate novel ideas. “While there are some amazing organic chemists out there, this allows us to be agnostic in how we search for novel ideas instead of relying purely on chemical intuition,” Persson said. “We can be surprised by what we find by combining experience with new, non-traditional ideas.”

The second advantage of the Electrolyte Genome is that it can add to scientists’ fundamental understanding of chemical interactions.

“It adds explanations to why certain things work or don’t work,” Persson said. “Frequently we rely on trial and error. If something doesn’t work, we throw it away and go to the next thing, but we don’t understand why it didn’t work. Having an explanation becomes very useful—we can apply the principles we’ve learned to future guesses. So the process becomes knowledge-driven rather than trial and error.”

How it Works – Funnel Method
The Electrolyte Genome uses the infrastructure of the Materials Project, a database of calculated properties of thousands of known materials, co-founded by Persson and Gerbrand Ceder. The researchers apply a funnel idea, doing a first screening of materials by applying a series of first principles calculations for properties that can be calculated quickly and robustly. This winnows down the candidate pool, on which they do a second screening for another property, and so on.

The concept was described in a recent essay in The Journal of Physical Chemistry Letters co-authored by Persson and her collaborators at Berkeley Lab and Argonne National Laboratory.
With a short list of candidate molecules, researchers can then perform more detailed computational evaluations, applying molecular dynamics simulations or other calculations as needed, for example to characterize the interactions of the different components.

The number of possible combinations is infinite since so many different salts can be combined with so many different solvents; plus impurities play a role. So Persson and her team do work closely with experimentalists to guide their research. “Because the space is so vast, we typically don’t throw the whole kitchen sink at it because it would take forever,” she said. “We tend to take some base molecule or some idea, then we explore all the variations on that idea. That’s the way to attack it.”

The methodology has been validated with known electrolytes. Using the supercomputers at the Department of Energy’s National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center (NERSC) at Berkeley Lab, the researchers can screen hundreds of molecules per day.

To date, more than 15,000 molecules for electrolytes—including 10,000 redox active molecules, hundreds of conductive network molecules, and salts, solvents, and more—have been calculated. Screening such quantities of molecules for suitable properties using traditional synthesis and testing techniques would take decades.
Early Success Stories

The Electrolyte Genome’s first major scientific finding—that magnesium electrolytes are very prone to forming ion pairs, which impacts several crucial aspects such as conductivity, charge transfer and stability of the electrolyte—was published in February in the Journal of the American Chemical Society.

They had another success screening molecules for redox capabilities for flow batteries for fellow Berkeley Lab scientist Brett Helms. “He basically gave us a chemical space of organogelator molecules and asked, ‘Can you tell me the best molecule if I want a voltage window that’s precisely here,’” Persson said. “We filtered down about a hundred candidates to one. It worked, and the molecule fit the intended purpose perfectly.”

The Electrolyte Genome is funded by the Joint Center for Energy Storage Research (JCESR), a Department of Energy multi-partner Energy Innovation Hub announced in 2012, led by Argonne National Laboratory and including Berkeley Lab. It is open source and will be made public by the end of JCESR’s five-year charter, at the latest, according to Persson.
This is the first in a series of SC15 videos that will be released leading up to the conference to help tell compelling and interesting stories of why HPC Matters.
 
About SC15
SC15, sponsored by ACM (Association for Computing Machinery) and IEEE Computer Society offers a complete technical education program and exhibition to showcase the many ways high performance computing, networking, storage and analysis lead to advances in scientific discovery, research, education and commerce. This premier international conference includes a globally attended technical program, workshops, tutorials, a world class exhibit area, demonstrations and opportunities for hands-on learning. For more information on SC15, please visit http://www.sc15.supercomputing.org/, or contact communications@info.supercomputing.org for more information.
 
About ACM
ACM, the Association for Computing Machinery www.acm.org, is the world’s largest educational and scientific computing society, uniting computing educators, researchers and professionals to inspire dialogue, share resources and address the field’s challenges. ACM strengthens the computing profession’s collective voice through strong leadership, promotion of the highest standards, and recognition of technical excellence. ACM supports the professional growth of its members by providing opportunities for life-long learning, career development, and professional networking.

Special thanks to Julie Chao from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory for her assistance with this article and video.

SC15 Announces Intel’s Diane Bryant as HPC Matters Plenary Speaker

Intel's Diane Bryant

Austin, TX (USA) – September 10, 2015 – SC15 today announced that Intel’s Diane Bryant, senior vice president and general manager of Intel’s Data Center Group, has been selected as the HPC Matters plenary speaker at the 27th annual SC15 conference on high performance computing (HPC), networking, storage and analysis.

Starting in 2013, the SC conference organizers launched “HPC Matters” to encourage members of the computational sciences community to share their thoughts, vision, and experiences with how high performance computers are used to improve the lives of people all over the world in more simple terms. Four pillars provide structure to the program: Influencing Daily Lives; Science and Engineering; Economic Impact; and Education

Bryant will discuss how next-generation supercomputers are transforming HPC and presenting exciting opportunities to advance scientific research and discovery to deliver far-reaching impacts on society.

“In a real sense, transformation is at the heart of existence, and ultimately the challenge and opportunity before us is to perceive and comprehend the power of transformation so that we can use it for the good of the world and everything in it. Nothing does that better than high performance computing,” observes SC15 general chair Jackie Kern, University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign.

As a frequent speaker on the future of technology, Bryant will draw on her experience running Intel’s Data Center Group, which includes the HPC business segment, and products ranging from high-end co-processors for supercomputers to big data analytics solutions to high-density systems for the cloud. The SC15 HPC Matters plenary takes place on Monday, November 16th, at 5:30 p.m. at the Austin Convention Center.

About SC15
SC15, sponsored by ACM (Association for Computing Machinery) and IEEE Computer Society offers a complete technical education program and exhibition to showcase the many ways high performance computing, networking, storage and analysis lead to advances in scientific discovery, research, education and commerce. This premier international conference includes a globally attended technical program, workshops, tutorials, a world class exhibit area, demonstrations and opportunities for hands-on learning. For more information on SC15, please visit http://www.sc15.supercomputing.org/, or contact communications@info.supercomputing.org for more information.

About ACM
ACM, the Association for Computing Machinery www.acm.org, is the world’s largest educational and scientific computing society, uniting computing educators, researchers and professionals to inspire dialogue, share resources and address the field’s challenges. ACM strengthens the computing profession’s collective voice through strong leadership, promotion of the highest standards, and recognition of technical excellence. ACM supports the professional growth of its members by providing opportunities for life-long learning, career development, and professional.

Intel and the Intel logo are trademarks of Intel Corporation in the U.S. and/or other countries.

Way Back Wednesday! Welcome back to Reno’s SC07

A seldom-seen photo during the blackout inside the Reno convention center at the Student Cluster Competition area.

SCinet’s Year of Epic Power Outages and Road Construction

SCinet, the world’s fastest network built each year for the SC conference by SC volunteers, has a heritage of  heroic stories about installing, bringing up, operating and managing networks and systems. Since its inception at SC91, SCinet continuously drives network resources as a platform for high performance computing, storage and analysis, the hallmark of the SC conference.  Even in 2007, this story was no different when SC went to Reno, Nevada.

At SC07, SCinet Chair Jackie Kern (SC15’s Conference Chair) led a team of more than 100 volunteers through unexpected power outages and last-minute road de-construction to bring in a whopping 200Gbps of bandwidth (cutting-edge at the time!).

With less than a month before the conference, the well-known “last mile” of fiber-optic infrastructure was needed to reach the convention center and support the network to the show floor.

Jackie Kern, SC07 SCinet Chair

“There was no other way to bring this kind of network connectivity into the convention center, so a trencher was needed to complete some last-minute road work—literally cutting the roadway outside the convention center to lay fiber into the facility,” explained Kern. This was patched with asphalt and served as a reminder that nothing stands in the way of SC’s SCinet network, which today is still a lasting connection into the Reno-Sparks Convention Center.

In addition to SCinet’s dedication to bringing in the technology to make demos and applications at SC possible, during the SC07 Exhibit show Kern said “a moment of complete silence occurred when all electronic devices suddenly came to a halt.” All was quiet as the convention center experienced three “power bumps,” overrunning all the circuits to the convention center with excessive electric currents. When power was restored moments later, hundreds of devices attempted to come back online, once again overriding the facility’s power infrastructure. With coordinated and staged power up, the SCinet team worked relentlessly to restore service to all exhibitors ASAP. The restoration of the SCinet network was tedious, but all services were returned to normal operations within a few hours.

The SCinet team is always on their toes, ready to respond to a variety of inevitable and unforeseeable hiccups. That said, all volunteers would agree these amazing, priceless experiences contribute to learning opportunities available only by building the fastest network in the world that is planned for one year, set up in one month, operated for one week, and torn down in 24 hours!

HPC Matters, because HPC Transforms - SC15 General Chair, Jackie Kern

Jackie Kern

From Jackie Kern:

Like many of you, HPC is more than just a vocation for me — there are many ways that I could make a living, but I choose to stay in HPC because only HPC allows me the chance to enable breakthroughs in such a broad range of fields. From new medicines to safer cars and clean water, HPC is making a difference every day.

Beginning in SC14 under the leadership of General Chair Trish Damkroger, the SC community began a multi-year effort to share the passion we feel for HPC with those outside the science and technical community. It is an effort to demonstrate the impact our community has on the world.

SC15 continues to focus on telling that story through our HPC Matters campaign. Throughout the year you’ll see new videos, inspiring stories, and links to examples of how HPC matters. As General Chair, I’m using this year to amplify that message with a discussion sparked by my own tagline, “HPC Transforms.” This emphasis supports the HPC Matters effort, but demonstrates specifically how HPC transforms ideas, products and people. 

As we are kicking preparations into high gear for this November, I wanted to take a minute to share the vision and goals we have set for this year’s conference:

SC15 Vision:
Provide the attendees the best possible experience from the best tech program and exhibits but also the most productive networking opportunities.  Create an environment where attendees can gain a renewed vigor for the industry and hopefully build the relationships they need to take science and computing to the next level. 

SC15 Goals:

• Engage the under-represented communities so that they become an integral part of the community of HPC. 
• Encourage young people to focus in STEM fields so that we can continue the trend of advancing science. 
• Provide a quality technical program that engages the community in new ways. 
• Enhance the user experience by offering them a way to easily find and get to what they need. This will be done through various methods of communicating and sharing information. 
• Bring awareness of the value of this field to the general population, as well as funding sources to continue investing in advancement. 

In her day job, Jackie Kern is the Director of Information Technology at Facilities and Services at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign (UIUC). She manages a team that provides application development, infrastructure, web services, and user support for her department of more than 1,200 employees.

HPCwire Posts Interview with SC15 General Chair Jackie Kern

SC15 Chair on HPC Transforms, Diversity Outreach, and Austin

Jackie Kern

By John Russell

SC15 General Chair Jackie Kern is hardly new to the HPC community. A member of the SC planning committee since 2003, Kern led the building of SCINET in 2007. The largest network in the world for a week, it delivered multicast video conferencing, among other things, onsite and around the world. As general chair this year, Kern is overseeing a broad agenda – themed HPC Transforms – and hoping to attract roughly 11,000 attendees, somewhat more than last year.

Click here to go the HPCwire website and continue reading the article.

SC15 to Strengthen, Enhance Programs for Students, Early Career Researchers

Student volunteers play a variety of important roles before and during the conference.

Revamped programs aimed at increasing diversity and supporting younger researchers at various career stages

For the past 15 years, the annual SC conference has welcomed hundreds of students to the week-long conference held every November, providing an entry into the community of high performance computing and networking. For SC15 in Austin, the student programs will be coordinated as a broader program to recruit a diverse group of students, ranging from undergrads to graduate students, as well as researchers who are in the early stages of their careers after graduating.

Through various programs, students can get their first introduction to supercomputing, compete in a grueling contest to assemble and run a computing cluster, learn about career options from mentors, present their research through posters and presentations, and participate in professional development sessions. For the first time, a focused program is also planned for early career scientists.

“The SC conference has a strong track record of supporting students and striving to increase the number of students from under-represented groups, which is critical for our community,” said SC15 General Chair Jackie Kern, leader of an IT department at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. “To build on our past successes and create a more cohesive student program, I am very happy to say that Jeanine Cook of Sandia National Laboratories has agreed to chair our student programs.”

Cook’s experience gives her strong qualifications for the tasks ahead. She was an associate professor at the Klipsch School of Electrical and Computer Engineering at New Mexico State University for 11 years. In 2008, she was a recipient of the prestigious Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE). The award was presented to Cook by President George W. Bush during a White House ceremony. In 2013, Cook accepted an offer to join the staff at Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque. She has also helped organize student programs at SC conferences since 2008.

“The SC15 theme is ‘HPC Transforms’ and we’re looking to do as much as we can so that our student attendees’ ideas about school and careers are also transformed,” Cook said. “In my 10 years as a professor, I saw many times how just the right opportunity or word of encouragement could have a powerful effect on a student’s career choice and development. At SC15, we want to provide that kind of inspiration to as many students as possible.”

Here is a look at the various components of the SC15 Student Program:

Student Volunteers: Launched at SC99, Student Volunteers often serves as a way to introduce computer science students to the field of high performance computing. In exchange for helping with administrative tasks, students can attend technical sessions and learn from leading vendors and research organizations. New for SC15: Student Volunteers program will be significantly increased in size and scope with the goal of attracting a broader, more diverse group, helping them come together as a community and spend more time experiencing the conference technical and interacting with other attendees. Applications for Student Volunteers open March 16, close June 1.

Student Cluster Competition: The Student Cluster Competition was created in 2007 to introduce the next generation of students to the high performance computing community and gives teams of students hands-on experience. In this real-time, non-stop, 48-hour challenge, teams of undergraduate and/or high school students will assemble a small cluster on the SC15 exhibit floor and race to demonstrate the greatest sustained performance across a series of applications. Over the last couple of years, the competition has drawn teams from around the world, including Australia, Canada, China, Costa Rica, Germany, Russia, Taiwan and the USA. Applications are now open, but close April 17.

HPC for Undergraduates: HPC for Undergraduates was launched at SC12 and then extended for three more years. The idea of providing a focused program integrated with the main technical program has proven successful. New for SC15: The program plans to introduce a focused Mentor/Protégé component. The HPC for Undergraduates program will form the basis for a new HPC for Early Career Researchers program Applications open March 16, close June 1.

The Mentor/Protégé Program also started at SC09 as part of the Broader Engagement program, matching students with volunteer mentors prior to the conference. The program, which aims to match protégés and mentors with similar technical backgrounds, will continue at SC15.

The ACM Student Research Competition Posters: This technical poster program provides an introductory route for students to begin presenting their research to the broader community. The student poster competition will again be part of the Technical Program at SC15. Participants in the SC15 Student Programs will be encouraged to attend the poster presentations to begin thinking about their own participation at future conferences. Submissions open Feb. 16, close July 31.

The Student-Postdoc Job & Opportunity Fair was first held during SC09 and has continued to grow. Interested students can meet with leading exhibitors and have the opportunity to submit their resumes in advance to introduce themselves. The job fair will be part of the Student Programs at SC15.

The Doctoral Showcase debuted at SC07 as a venue to showcase research by students earning Ph.D.s in fields related to high performance computing. At SC15, It will be part of the Technical Program with active support from Student Programs and participants will be encouraged to network with Student Program attendees. Submissions open Feb. 16, close July 31.

“By slightly adapting some of the programs, we aim to give students a better foundation for making the most of their week at the conference,” Cook said. “By having more focused interactions with their peers, with mentors and potential employers and members of the global HPC community, we believe we will also provide them with experiences and knowledge that they can use in planning their own career paths.”

SC15 Chair Jackie Kern Explains How HPC is Transforming the World

SC15 General Chair Jackie Kern from the University of Illinois explains the vision behind this year's theme "HPC Transforms" and provides numerous examples of how HPC is transforming the world.