New to Berkeley Lab Computing Sciences Team
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June 30, 2010
Kaushik Balakrishnan, CRD's High Performance Computing Department
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| Kaushik Balakrishnan |
As a new postdoctoral fellow in the Computational Research Division's (CRD's) High Performance Computing Department, Kaushik Balakrishnan will use high-fidelity computer simulations and robust numerical schemes to study the physical behavior of combustion effects in multiphase explosions.
"I started grad school doing combustion experiments, burnt my fingers, and so ended up in computing. It was then that I realized, computing can be fun, interesting, and very challenging," says Balakrishnan, who recently completed his doctorate in aerospace engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology.
Originally from India, Balakrishnan earned his undergraduate degree in aerospace engineering at the Indian Institute of Technology in Madras, then moved to the United States to pursue his doctorate in the same filed. On his spare time Balakrishnan enjoys reading novels, watching classic movies, long distance running and wildlife photography.
Jennifer Horsman, CRD Visualization Group
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| Jennifer Horsman |
This month, Jennifer Horsman joins the Computational Research Division's (CRD) Visualization Group to do scientific visualization for the Department of Energy's (DOE) Advanced Simulation Capability for Environmental Management (ASCEM). Managed by DOE's office of Environmental Management, ASCEM is a consortium of five national laboratories that are collaborating to develop transformational, high performance computer modeling capabilities to better meet the challenge of waste disposal and cleanup left over from the creation of the US nuclear stockpile.
Though Horsman may be new to CRD, she is no stranger to the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab). In the early 1990s, she visualized scientific datasets for the Berkeley Lab's Earth Sciences Department. She has cultivated more than 15 years of experience programming with FORTRAN, C and VB.net; scripting with Python, perl, csh, IDL, Matlab, javascript, HTML and CSS; on a variety of platforms including Windows, Mac0S, UNIX, Linux and DOS. As an undergraduate at UC Berkeley, Horsman originally intended to major in computer science but was lured away by geological sciences. However, she kept using her programming skills to support Earth Science research. She even worked with Berkeley Lab's Don Vasco writing and modifying FORTRAN programs for seismic tomography research.
"My father was certainly my inspiration for my initial focus on computer science. He is a hardware/software engineer and we used to write programs together on our Apple IIe and he taught me how to program in C before I started my undergraduate education at the University of California, Berkeley," says Horsman.
Originally from Colorado, Horsman enjoys hiking, kayaking, road bicycling, running, tekemark skiing, swimming, rock climbing, photography, reading, weaving, spinning fiber, and knitting in her spare time.Manoj Pillay, CRD Biological Data Management Department
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| Manoj Pillay |
As a new computer systems engineer in the Computational Research Division's (CRD's) Biological Data Management Department, Manoj Pillay will be developing new programming tools and designing databases to optimize the IMG and IMG/M systems, which are platforms that support data management and analysis of microbial genomes that function individually, as well as "metagenomes" or microbial communities that function collaboratively. Additionally, he will work with scientists from the Joint Genome Institute to develop information management/presentation systems for organizing project lifecycles.
"In all my experience, I've done well when the end-user or collaborator is a biologist who needs a cross functional application or a computational algorithm to solve a biological problem and I look forward to applying this expertise to Berkeley Lab research," says Pillay, who spent the last four years at the Delaware Biotechnology Institute before coming to the Berkeley Lab.
In his previous role, Pillay developed techniques and pipelines for analyzing deep sequencing data including Illumina SBS short reads, Roche 454 and Solexa MPSS; designed and implemented information management tools and ad hoc organizations for the Institute's laboratories; and developed a computational pipeline for global identification of micoRNA targets in plants.
"As a high-school student, I was exposed to a computer that had very limited scope for entertainment. To see anything exciting on your computer screen in an academic environment, you had to write code. I started with C++ to amuse myself and friends with graphical patterns on my monochrome monitor and slowly moved over to coding simple interactive games," says Pillay. "The ability to turn effort that went into writing code into something that could keep people engaged to the computer inspired me to get into computing."
Originally from Kochi, India, Pillay received a Bachelor's degree in Information Technology from the Cochin University of Science and Technology in Kerala, India. In 2006 he came to the United States to pursue a Master’s degree in Computer and Information Science at the University of Delaware. A self-proclaimed movie buff and avid fiction reader, Pillay enjoys spending his time off with family.
David Camp, CRD Visualization Group
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| David Camp |
As the newest member of the Computational Research Division's (CRD's) Visualization Group, David Camp will use high performance computers and graphic processing units to "bring scientific visualization to life."
Before joining the Visualization Group, Camp spent 16 years designing and supporting software for a wide range of companies. In 2000, Camp taught C++ as an adjunct professor at Sierra College while pursuing a Masters degree in Computer Science at the University of Califonia, Davis (UCD). He is currently working toward a PhD in Computer Science at UCD, and continues to teach. Duing the spring 2010 quarter, Camp taught a C class at UCD.
Camp's interest in computing sparked when he got his first computer, a Commodore 64. "I took a Pascal class at my community college during my seventh grade to learn how to program it. Then I started writing games and small programs, which I really loved, so I decided then that this was what I was going to do."
A Vacaville native, Camp like to spend his spare time fixing up his properties, playing board games with friends and traveling.
Jim Mellander, NERSC Cybersecurity Team
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| Jim Mellander |
This month, Jim Mellander joins the NERSC team as a cybersecurity analyst. Prior to this post, Mellander spent 10 years in the Berkeley Lab's Information Technology Division's Computer Protection Program. In addition to assisting in monitoring and remediation of cyber-threats, he will also help develop tools and processes to enhance NERSC's security posture.
"After 10 years working in cybersecurity at the Berkeley Lab, I am well versed in the security threats and issues in the Department of Energy community. I've created a number of enhancements to the intrusion detection system that NERSC uses, Bro, over this timeframe," says Mellander.
He notes that his interest in computing ignited after taking a Fortran class in high school. He continued this computing education during a stint in the U.S. Navy, at Laney College and in the school of of "lets find something interesting and fun, and do it."
A bay area native, Mellander says that he is fortunate to live in a semi-rural environment where he can enjoy a relaxed country atmosphere and be in the city within minutes. When he is not working at NERSC,
Mellander is an amateur chicken farmer and a full-time husband. Several years ago, he was part of a team that wrote "Intrusion Detection and Prevention," which was published by McGraw-Hill. He is currently working on a history/historical novel based on little-known events that occurred during World War 2 on the Northern California coast.
Matthew "Cody" Rotermund, NERSC Computer Operations and ESnet Support
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| Cody Rotermund (front) with his family on Splash Mountain. |
This month, Matthew "Cody" Rotermund joins NERSC's Computer Operations and ESnet Support Group as a High-Speed Computing Technician. Before coming to NERSC, Rotermund provided Tier-2 and -3 technical support and security services to over 20,000 customers as the General Manager of Technical Services at MegaPath, Inc. a nationwide provider of multiprotocol label switching (MPLS). He notes that his interest in computing sparked in 1986 when his parents gave him a TI-99, complete with tape drive and voice modulator.
"I felt like one of the lucky kids," says Rotermund. "I could use BASIC to program the computer; however the flavor of BASIC it was running didn't really match up with the BASIC syntax of other PCs at the time. The positive byproduct of this was that I was forced to modify and tweak any code I wanted to run on the PC, which really kick-started my interest in computing and more specifically modifying existing hardware and software to do what I needed."
A California native, Rotermund was born in Bakersfield, raised in Pleasanton, and currently lives in Livermore. On his spare time, Rotermund enjoys reading, fly-fishing, camping, gardening, brewing beer, cooking, and goofing off with his wife and children.
Chang-Seo Park, CRD Future Technologies Group
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| Chang-Seo Park hiking in Yosemite |
As a graduate student assistant in Computational Research Division’s Future Technologies Group (FTG), Chang-Seo Park will be working on active testing for Unified Parallel C (UPC) programs. Before beginning his post at the Berkeley Lab, Park interned at Microsoft, NASA Ames Research Center and several startup companies.
“I was exposed to computers and programming at a very early age. I still remember that day in 1988, when my dad brought home our family's first personal computer,” says Park.
Originally from South Korea, Park earned an undergraduate degree in Computer Science and Engineering at Seoul National University. He came to the United States in 2005 to pursue a Master of Science degree in computer science at Stanford and is now working toward his doctorate in the same discipline at the University of California, Berkeley.
In his spare time, Park enjoys playing computer games and programming for fun. He also enjoys jogging, hiking, playing basketball and tennis.
