Presentation of the Board members

David Gigrich holds a Computer Science Degree from Oregon State University. He has been with The Boeing Company since 1980 where he currently works in MSE CAE Engineering Systems and holds the position of Senior Technical Analyst providing technical support for in-house and 3rd party software used in the development of all major Boeing commercial airplanes (e.g. 787 Dreamliner & 747 Advanced). He serves as the representative for Structures’ Computing on the Boeing HPC Council which is responsible for defining the company’s future high-performance computing needs and overseeing all major computing hardware purchases.
David has participated in CUG since 2000. He was the Chair for the PE SIG from 2000 – 2003 and was elected onto the Board in 2002 as Vice President and Program Chair. In 2006 he took over as President of the Board from Barbara Horner-Miller.

Nicholas P. Cardo is the System Lead on the Cray XT4 at the National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.  In his role as System Lead, he is responsible for project planning major activities for the Cray XT4 as well as the day-to-day system management activities.  Nicholas has a long history with Cray systems including the XMP, YMP, YMP-2E, C90, J90 and T3E.  Nicholas holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Computer Science from New Jersey Institute of Technology as well as a Master of Science degree in Computer Engineering from San Jose State University.

Jim began his career in supercomputing in 1966, working to exploit CDC 6600 computers at Westinghouse. Later, he managed their international engineering and scientific computing activities and, in 1984, co-founded the Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center. Since 1996, he has been the PSC Director of Special Projects, continuing his leadership role in supercomputing system acquisition and implementation. Before election to the CUG Board in 2006, Jim held user group positions in CDC’s VIM (7600 development committee chair, vice-president, president), HP-CAST (president) and was the first chair of CUG’s XT3 SIG.

Mark Fahey holds a PhD in numerical analysis from the University of Kentucky. He has been with Oak Ridge National Laboratory since November 2001. He currently holds the position of Senior Scientific Application Analyst in the Center for Computational Sciences at ORNL. Mark has been involved with CUG as an X1 SIG Chair since May 2003. He joined the CUG board in May 2007 to take over as Treasurer.

Mike leads the Advanced Research Computing Group at STFC Daresbury Laboratory, which is engaged in optimization of applications across a wide range of scientific disciplines for terascale systems. He manages the delivery of a number of computational science and engineering support programmes. His own work focuses on the development and optimization of environmental modelling and CFD codes, including performance engineering and application of Grid  technologies. Mike joined the CUG Board in May 2007 as Director-at-Large.

Liam Forbes has a Master's in Computer Science from the University of Alaska, Fairbanks.  He started working at the Arctic Region Supercomputing Center in 1995 supporting a variety of systems, including the Cray Y-MP, and has supported each of the Center's Cray systems, plus other HPC systems, since then.  In 2006, he became the Lead for ARSC's High Performance Computing and Storage Group focused on HPC systems support.  In 1999 Liam made his first presentation to CUG. Since then he has been a SIG (co)Chair or presenter at each CUG.  Liam joined the CUG Board as a Director-at-Large in 2008.

Having graduated from Lausanne Hotel Management School with a BSc in International Hospitality Management in 2003, Ladina gained experience in conference management with a Geneva based conference organizer. She joined CSCS in the summer of 2004 where she works as HR manager, Event manager and head of the infrastructure unit. Ladina first joined CUG in 2005 in Albuquerque to learn the ropes of organizing this conference in preparation for managing the 2006 conference in Lugano. She joined the board in 2007 with a strong wish to further assist future local arrangements committees and bring a different viewpoint to the strategic planning and outlook of the board and the organization.