The Winter Classic Invitational Student Cluster Competition is very proud to have such a distinguished and accomplished Advisory Board supporting us. The Advisory Board includes:
Trish Damkroger
Trish is awesome in pretty much every way. Prior to joining Intel, Trish spent more than 14 years at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. She was also the General Chair of SC14 in New Orleans. Great sense of humor.
Trish has accomplished much in her career and her position in the Winter Classic Invitational Student Cluster Competition Advisory Board is proof of her value to our industry and her dedication to spreading high technology education worldwide.
Dr. Jack Dongarra
Jack Dongarra is also known as the Frank Sinatra of HPC. Not because of his singing, but because he’s done so much in the industry and been such a big influence. He was the co-developer of two of the most important benchmarks in HPC: HPL (LINPACK) and HPCG.
If you could see Jack’s trophy case at home, you’d see it chock full of awards and trophies, including: The Fernbach Award, the IEEE Medal of Excellence, the SIAM Award for Career Achievement, the Charles Babbage Award, the ACM/IEEE Ken Kennedy Award, plus many others.
He’s spent more than 31 years at Oak Ridge and University of Tennessee, Knoxville, where he is probably the most distinguished professor they have.
Little known Jack fact: He really needs a bigger trophy case.
Brent Gorda
Brent was born at a very young age and after that almost immediately entered the technology industry. After co-founding an internet-based commodity marketplace and a contract software house, Brent joined Lawrence Livermore National Lab and, very importantly, founded the Student Cluster Competitions in 2007.
He founded Whamcloud, sold it to Intel, worked at Intel for a while, did a few other things, then found his way back into technology as a Senior VP at Arm. Without Brent, we wouldn’t have a Student Cluster Competition, much less our Winter Classic Invitational Student Cluster Competition. He is a great man, ask anyone (or even him) and they’ll confirm it.
Henry Newman
After earning a BA in International/Global Studies at American University in Washington, DC, Henry took the next logical step and joined Cray Research as a Senior Programmer Analyst and became a Benchmark Maven. After 11 years at Cray, he helped start HPC consultancy Instrumental, Inc., where he spent 22 years advising customers on technology solutions, specializing in architecture, performance, storage, and security analysis.
In our opinion, there is no one better when it comes to understanding systems, their strengths and weaknesses, and how to make them perform to their maximum potential.
Henry is also a co-host on the highly popular Radio Free HPC webcast, where he proves weekly that he was never cut out for a career in diplomacy.
Calista Redmond
Calista Redmond is a hard charger with an entrepreneurial flair. She started two companies near the beginning of her career and while at IBM, guided the fledgling OpenPOWER Foundation through its infancy to rapid growth.
She was also Vice President of IBM’s Z Ecosystem, opening up the venerable mainframe to modern software and solutions. Her more than 20 years of senior management experience made her the perfect choice to head up emerging tech disruptor RISC-V.
Little known Calista facts: she holds a patent for “Utilizing Gross VEhicle Weight to Determine Passenger Numbers” and was also a women’s hockey player while in graduate school. Go Blue!
Birali Runesha
Birali Runesha brings a lot to the table for the Winter Classic Invitation Student Cluster Competition Advisory Board. With over 17 years of experience in HPC and scientific software development, Birali has accomplished much in his career so far.
Prior to University of Chicago, Dr. Runesha served as Director of Scientific Computing and Applications at the University of Minnesota Supercomputing Institute.
He is also a perennial speaker and head of judging at the South Africa CHPC HPE forum and Student Cluster Competition.
Little known Birali fact: he can build a bridge for you. His undergraduate and graduate degrees were in the field of Civil Engineering, so he’s highly skilled at building bridges, highways, curbs and driveways.
Gilad Shainer
Gilad Shainer founded the HPC AI Advisory Council in 2008, growing it to more than 400 member companies, universities and research centers. The mission for the group today is to bridge the gap between HPC-AI usage and its true potential, provide best practices, and explore future technologies and leading edge solutions.
In addition to hosting conferences throughout the world, the HPC AI Advisory Council also founded and manages the ISC Student Cluster Competition, which is now in its ninth year. They also run the annual APAC HPC-AI University competition.
Little known Gilad fact: in graduate school, he was active in the “Artificial Pancreas” project and is thus, we assume, a big proponent of pancreas health and well being.
Dr. Happy Sithole
Let’s put this on the record first: There is no nicer man in HPC than Happy Sithole. He’s universally liked and highly respected for the fantastic job he’s done in growing the South African Centre for High Performance Computing and it’s influence in the country.
Dr. Sithole is relentless when it comes to spreading HPC/AI knowledge throughout South Africa. He implemented a program, the CHPC Winter School, where 100 students are trained on how to best utilize HPC resources.
He extended this into an internal CHPC Student Cluster Competition and HPC forum that is attended by more than 600 people every December. He’s done amazing work and has been rewarded with even more responsibility as Director of the NICIS.
Little known Happy fact: there aren’t any, he’s a completely open book.
Dr. Stephan Wallentowitz
Dr. Wallentowitz has covered all the bases when it comes to education. He earned his first diploma in Computer Engineering, then followed it up with a Masters of Business Administration (with a major in entrepreneurship, technology management and innovation), and topped it off with a PhD in Electrical and Electronic Engineering. Phew….
Along the way he taught at Technical University of Munich (who have competed in past Student Cluster Competitions), worked in R&D, and became the director of the Free & Open Source Silicon Foundation. Now he’s a professor at Munich University of Applied Sciences where he teaches Computer Architecture and Hardware Security. He is for sure keeping himself busy, no question about that.
Little known fact: maybe not so little known, but he’s a huge fan of the open source RISC-V processor and thus Calista Redmond is a big fan of him.
Dr. Bill Magro
Dr. Magro knows HPC. He earned a bachelors degree in Applied Engineering and Engineering Physics at Cornell and topped it off with a PhD in Quantum Many-body Physics at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
Before moving to Google, Bill spent just over 20 years at Intel, starting as the Director of Intel’s Parallel Applications Center. He became an Intel Fellow in 2011 and was named Intel’s HPC Chief Technologist in 2017. Along the way, Bill was also the Co-Chair of the Infiniband Trade Association’s Technical Working Group.
Welcome to the Advisory Board, Bill, we’re glad to have you!
Tony Baylis
Tony Baylis is a senior leader, partner and advocate for Diversity and Inclusion (D&I) programs and activities for LLNL. Tony oversees the laboratory’s strategic interactions and successful execution in building and collaborating with academic, community, government, industry, and diversity organization stakeholders. He represents the Laboratory on the subjects of D&I, science, engineering, arts, and mathematics (STEAM), outreach efforts, and student programs.
Tony has created and implemented inclusive programs focused on increasing the representation of women and the underserved community in various organizations and industries. He serves as a Department of Energy champion, a Board Member for the EmpowHer Institute, an Advisory Board Member for the Computing Alliance of Hispanic-Serving Institutes, an Industry Advisory Board Member for the University of Florida Computer & Information Science & Engineering Department, an Advisory Member at Polytechnic University of Puerto Rico (PUPR) for Center of Academic Excellence (CAE) in Cyber Defense Education (CDE), and a Diversity, Equity & Inclusion consultant.