In her concurrent role as a Research Assistant Professor in the UT Department of Nuclear Engineering since January 2021, Penchoff’s focus centers on data science and high-performance computing (HPC) applications in radiochemistry. Her research spans exascale computing, artificial intelligence (AI) applications, selective binding optimization for rare earth elements (REEs) and actinides, nuclear forensics, and radiotherapeutics.

Penchoff’s career has been punctuated by impactful roles, such as the Director of the Institute for Nuclear Security Scientific Fellows Program at the UT Howard H. Baker Jr. Center for Public Policy from 2018 to 2020. Here, she harnessed computational protocols to address national security needs and facilitate interdisciplinary collaboration.

Her expertise extends to education, with her former role as Co-Instructor of “Advanced Policy Process and Program Evaluation” at the UT Howard H. Baker Jr. Center for Public Policy in 2020. Penchoff currently is a Fellow of the Baker School of Public Policy and Public Affairs, where she serves in the Center for Energy, Transportation and Environmental Policy and the Center for National Security and Foreign Affairs. She has actively contributed to various professional organizations, including the American Chemical Society (ACS), where she holds multiple leadership positions and chairs committees focused on computational science, data science, and AI applications in nuclear and radiochemistry.

Penchoff’s dedication to fostering diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) is evident through her roles on committees and commissions within the university. Her research contributions, encompassing computational science and modeling, and her involvement in DEI efforts have led to numerous publications and awards, including the 2023 UT Tickle College of Engineering Commitment to Inclusive Community Award.

An Influential Figure

Penchoff’s multidimensional roles in leadership, academia, research, and advocacy, including as SC23’s Plenary Productions Chair, underscore her substantial impact across scientific, educational, and professional spheres. Her commitment to advancement and collaboration marks her as an influential figure in the world of computational science and beyond. In this I AM HPC profile, Penchoff articulates a visionary aspiration of unrestricted collaboration across the scientific realm, seeking to transcend barriers and foster unity.

Deborah Penchoff

Associate Director of the Innovative Computing Laboratory and Research Assistant Professor, University of Tennessee (UT)

Deborah on LinkedIN

Q: What single event most made you realize you wanted a career in HPC/computing?

Penchoff: While in graduate school, I was working on a project focused on optimization of separations of REEs and actinides. This was critical to guarantee a national supply of REEs and to develop strategies to bind actinides for applications in national security. Throughout this project, I realized the power of HPC resources and how they could accelerate solution development for these applications. Since then, I have been passionate about developing strategies to connect HPC with research areas that can benefit from HPC’s accelerating capabilities.

Q: What do you consider your biggest contribution to the HPC/computing community?

Penchoff: I think my biggest contribution so far has been to develop protocols to facilitate HPC-driven tools to address needs in radiochemistry.I think my biggest contribution so far has been to develop protocols to facilitate HPC-driven tools to address needs in radiochemistry.

Q: In the past 35 years, what is the most significant overlooked breakthrough that has impacted the field in your eyes?

Penchoff: I have been in this field for a little bit over a decade. I can’t say at this point what may be an overlooked breakthrough from the past 35 years. I certainly look forward to future multidisciplinary advances in the field.

Q: What would you like to see change about, within, or among the HPC/computing community?

Penchoff:  I would like computer scientists and domain scientists to see themselves as part of a large team striving to develop solutions for needs critical in society with local, regional, national, and global scope. Historically, fields developed in defined areas of research, and great advances have been achieved thanks to efforts in each community. Moving forward, I would like for scientists to be part of a larger team with less defined boundaries to create an environment in which everyone can feel that they belong. This would allow everyone to contribute their best efforts to develop solutions that require multidisciplinary expertise.

With a wealth of experience, Harrell’s journey in the realm of computational science and HPC spans over two decades. Prior to joining TACC, he spent more than six years as a Senior Computational Scientist within the Research Computing group at Purdue University. He also boasts a decade of experience in industry Linux system administration.

As a testament to his commitment to the field and dedication to fostering the next generation of computational scientists, Harrell serves as the chair for the ACM SIGHPC Computational and Data Science Fellowship.

Commitment & Dedication

In addition to his professional accomplishments, Harrell has actively participated in the SC Conference for several years, taking on various leadership roles. His extensive involvement in SC demonstrates his dedication to the HPC community and its growth. Notably, he has chaired key committees, including the Best Reproducibility Advancement Award and Tutorials committees. Currently, he is the SC23 Executive Assistant.

In this I AM HPC profile, read more about Harrell’s HPC contributions and how his expertise makes him a valuable asset in the advancement of scientific computing and research.

Stephen Harrell

HPC Engineering Scientist, Texas Advanced Computing Center (TACC)

Stephen on LinkedIN

Q: What single event most made you realize you wanted a career in HPC/computing?

Harrell: I came from an IT/Systems Administration background in industry. I got hooked when I started an academic job 15 years ago and realized I could make more of an impact in the world supporting science. I have been supporting science and engineering in academia ever since.

Q: What do you consider your biggest contribution to the HPC/computing community?

Harrell: I have contributed in small ways many, many times. I think, in general, my contribution is helping scientists learn about our world. I do some computer science research as well, but there is nothing more satisfying for me than supporting new discoveries about our world, our universe, and us.

Q: What would you like to see change about, within, or among the HPC/computing community?

Harrell: I would like to see the different organizations that push HPC forward start to share their own technology, as well as building on others’ work. There is often a push to do something “new” when a good amount of the ideas [generated] in the project-in-planning are implemented somewhere else. We need to reuse this work and collaborate across programs, institutions, agencies, and countries.

It is often more fun to reinvent the wheel. However, we only need so many kinds of wheels. What actually is needed are carts with wheels that anyone can replace.

Learn more about Harrell’s work and contributions on his ORCiD profile. 

Badia has been recognized with the Euro-Par Achievement Award in 2019, noting her work on parallel task-based programming models, workflow applications, and systems; the Dona TIC Award 2019 (Academia/Researcher category); and the International Symposium on High-Performance Parallel and Distributed Computing (HPDC) Achievement Award in 2021. In 2023, she was invited to become a member of the Institut d’Estudis Catalans, a private academic, scientific, and cultural institution dedicated to researching Catalan culture, further solidifying her status as a distinguished academic in her field.

As a longtime SC Conference participant, Badia has held diverse roles, including as an exhibitor, tutorial presenter, panelist, workshop organizer, invited speaker, poster author, and Birds of a Feather session organizer. She also has contributed her share of technical papers as both an author and presenter. For SC23, Badia took an even bigger leap by serving as Co-Chair (with Kathryn Mohror of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory) of the Technical Program. 

Researcher & Volunteer in Parallel

Notably, Badia’s substantial involvement with the SC Conference happens to coincide with her decision to pursue computing as a career. In her I AM HPC profile, Badia shares some of her journey thus far and where she still would like to see the computing research community evolve.   

Rosa M. Badia

Workflows and Distributed Computing Manager, Barcelona Supercomputing Center

Rosa on LinkedIN

Q: What single event most made you realize you wanted a career in HPC/computing?

Badia: One event significantly impacted me and made me want to belong and contribute more to the HPC community. I was already contributing to the European Center of Parallelism in Barcelona (CEPBA), the precursor of the Barcelona Supercomputing Center. At that time, I had the opportunity to attend SC02 in Baltimore—my first SC! I enjoyed the event so much and was so excited about the Technical Program, the Exhibits, and all the components of SC that when I left, I told myself I wanted to be more involved with this community.

Q: What do you consider your biggest contribution to the HPC/computing community?

Badia: During the last 15 years, I have done research on task-based programming models for different target platforms: multicore processors, GPUs, and distributed computing. For example, in SC06, we presented a paper about CellSs, a task-based programming model for the Cell processor. Also, from BSC, we proposed the tasking model, which has been adopted in the OpenMP specification. My recent research focuses more on distributed computing through the PyCOMPSs/COMPSs programming environment and on the development of workflows that combine traditional HPC simulations with artificial intelligence and data analytics. 

Q: In the past 35 years, what is the most significant overlooked breakthrough that has impacted the field in your eyes?

Badia: I am not sure I can identify any overlooked breakthrough. However, multiple innovations have impacted the field in recent years. To mention a few, the appearance of the multicore chips posed large challenges on how applications should be programmed or the heterogeneous architectures (mainly GPUs but also FPGAs). More recently, artificial intelligence has been changing the field a lot and is opening a considerable controversy regarding its impact on traditional modeling and simulation. 

Q: What would you like to see change about, within, or among the HPC/computing community?

Badia: Ideally, I would like [to make] more international collaboration possible. While there are initiatives that try to foster this, in the end, it isn’t easy. I see groups in different regions (United States, Europe, Asia) working on similar topics and sometimes duplicating efforts because there are no common funding instruments that enable real international collaboration. Unfortunately, it is something challenging to achieve since even regions with good political relationships have no programs allowing this collaboration. Another aspect that I will be happy to see change is gender and diversity in general. SC is doing an excellent job promoting it, but, in fact, the numbers in the institutions still show that there is a lot of work to be done. 

Q: What are you most looking forward to at SC23?

Badia: For almost the last two years, I have worked with Kathryn Mohror as Co-Chairs of the SC23 Technical Program. This has involved a committee of more than 500 members in eight program components. Although this has required a great effort from all of us, we are very excited about the forthcoming SC23 and wish for a very successful event. 

Lori Diachin Asks All the Important Questions

Dan, Verónica, and Dustin Listening Intently

Each volunteer body meets regularly according to their team’s objectives, with most meetings conducted remotely. However, building on the notion that some ideas are better hatched in person, there typically are six face-to-face meetings spread throughout the two years prior to the current year’s conference. As such, 54 volunteers and contracted professionals met in Indianapolis for the third scheduled in-person meeting in advance of SC23. During the two-day meeting the teams shared their progress, discussed needs, solved problems, and assessed their long-term objectives. This meet-up allowed everyone to align their goals and create synergies via impromptu collaboration. The volunteers worked hard during the day and enjoyed informal team-building opportunities at select Indianapolis venues in the evenings, such as dinner at The Garage Food Hall.

SCinet Members Rocking Game Night

Dorian Arnold Speeding Towards November

SC23 Planning Committee