Current and Future Trends in HPC | Center for Computation & Technology

	Frontiers of Scientific Computing Lecture Series
	Current and Future Trends in HPC
	Anne C. Elster
	Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU), University of Texas, Austin (visting)
	Johnston 338 December 12, 2005 - 11:00 am
Abstract: The high-performance computing (HPC) field continues to evolve at a blazing speed. Teraflop supercomputing is already here driven by multiscale 3D simulations producing Petabytes of data, to be analyzed, stored and visualized on increasingly more complex systems. The introduction of Japan's Earth-Simulator supercomputer in 2002 and the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) project at CERN has spurred further R&D spending in both the US and Europe, including UK's £ 250 million e-Science initiative and the emergence of large computational GRID projects on both continents. At SC'05, the most recent Supercomputer Conference in Seattle, there were more than 9200 attendees from all over the world, illustrating the current breath and popularity of the field. This talk will highlight some of the main HPC programs at NTNU and CERN the author is involved with. A discussion of some of the current and future trends in parallel computing, including processor technololgy (multicore processors, FPGAs, etc), cluster and hybrid systems, programming tools and libraries, as well as the emerging fields of "googling" and MMOG (Massively Multiplayer Online Games) will also be included.

Speaker's Bio: Dr. Anne C. Elster is currently a visiting professor in ECE at Univ. of Texas at Austin. She is also an Assoc. Prof. in Computer Science at the Norwegian Univ. of Science and Technology (NTNU) in Trondheim, Norway where she helped found their Computational Science and Engineering Program as Co-Director. She is currently involved in analyzing bids for NTNU's next national HPC system (US$ 4+ million budget). Dr. Elster was born near the Arctic Circle in Mo i Rana, Norway. After completing her secondary education in Porsgrunn, Norway, she received a one-year scholarship to the Univ. of Oregon. Curious to find out how computers really work, she then transferred to the Univ. of Massachusetts at Amherst where she received a B.S. in Computer Systems Engineering with cum laude as well as took several courses in computer science and honors mathematics. Anne also holds M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Electrical Engineering from Cornell University where she had a lot of fun at their supercomputer center (a.k.a. Theory Center) exploring various HPC systems in the late 80s and early 90s. In the past she has served on the MPI standards committees (MPI and MPI-2), held summer jobs at CMI, IBM TJ Watson and Xerox Research centers as well as worked for Schlumberger and the Univ. of Texas at Austin. She also served on the Research Council of Norway's HPC committee lead by Prof. Risto Nieminen, Helsinki Univ. of Tech., Finland (TRP III, 2003-2004) . Her current research interests include cluster and GRID computing and algorithms for telecommunication. Several of her Master's students have had internships at CERN, Switzerland related to GRID computing. She has a 15 month-old daughter with husband, Lloyd D. Clark, who is an "MIT-cubed" graduate and telecommunication/ wireless expert.

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