Within each position, candidates are listed in alphabetical order.
Candidates for Secretary
Brandon Cook (National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center (NERSC))
I have been a user of Cray computers for the past decade, I started as a Physics graduate student with an XT4 (Franklin). I used XE6 (Hopper), XC30 (Edison) and an XK7 (Titan) as a graduate student at Vanderbilt and then as a postdoc at Oak Ridge. Then in 2016 I joined the application performance group at NERSC and starting help our users get the most out of our Cray systems. At NERSC I am leading the simulation area of our application readiness program (NESAP) for Perlmutter, a Cray Shasta). I have also contributed to the procurement process for Cori, Perlmutter and am now involved in pathfinding for our next machine.
I have previously contributed to CUG with paper submissions and talks. I really enjoy the exchange of knowledge and experience that occurs at CUG. If elected I will work to support the organization – in particular I would work to expand the audience and scope of the Cray User Group to include more application readiness and performance topics.
Jim Rogers (Oak Ridge National Lab (ORNL))
Jim Rogers is the Director for Computing and Facilities within the National Center for Computational Sciences at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. He has acquired, installed, and operated Cray systems for more than 30 years, from vector systems including the Y-MP, C90, J90 through the MPP series with the T3E and today’s XT/XE/XK/XC. He continues to be heavily involved in the requirements analysis, acquisition, integration and operational aspects of several Cray systems for multiple Federal agencies, from CS clusters through analytics systems and the emerging Shasta platform.
Mr. Rogers held the position of CUG Treasurer from 2010 through 2017, where strong fiscal policies produced significant positive income versus expenses in each of those eight years, substantially stabilizing the underlying organization. He defined and implemented detailed budgets that allowed the Conference to substantially improve and increase the benefits provided back to its members. He was active across many Board functional areas, seeking to improve organizational structure and policies, working to increase the quality and depth of the technical program, and significantly contributing to site-selection and contract negotiation activities.
As CUG Secretary, Mr. Rogers will bring his breadth of experience across the CUG organization and attention to detail to the role as Secretary, with the goal to identify changes that can help the organization run more efficiently and to extend and expand the communication between CUG and its Member organizations and contributors. CUG continues to provide an important venue for the exchange of ideas, best practices, and collaboration. Mr. Rogers looks forward to the opportunity to support that mission in this new role
Candidates for Treasurer
Scott Michael (Indiana University (IU))
No statement available
Candidates for Director-At-Large
William B. (Trey) Breckenridge III (Mississippi State University (MSU))
I am the Director for High Performance Computing at Mississippi State University. In this role, I oversee all aspects of computing, data storage, data communications and general operations for the High Performance Computing Collaboratory. I have over 27 years of professional experience in high performance computing and computer operations support at MSU.
I have served the CUG board of directors for the last three years in a director-at-large position. In this role I have served as a sponsor liaison for the conference where I managed sponsorship solicitations and coordinated sponsor activities. If re-elected, I will serve the CUG membership and support the continued growth of the conference to the best of my ability.
Fabrice Cantos (National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research (NIWA))
To whom it may concern,
It is a pleasure to apply for a position on the Board of Directors.
My organisation, the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research in New Zealand, is a new Cray User site with a mix of CS400 and CS500 clusters as well as two XC50 at two different sites.
Although we are a relatively small site, we make a significant contribution to the New Zealand research community as a nationwide provider of the full spectrum of scientific computing capability, including numerical modelling, analytics, visualisation, and a research storage platform.
It would be an honour, challenge, and responsibility to bring to the board the experience of working with a broad and diverse community of users as well as the challenge of small organisation as ours to accomplish its goals.
On a personal level, the prospect of being a young board member is both inspiring and intimidating. I will bring to the table energy, knowledge, and 15 years of expertise in HPC in diverse areas. I was a scientific developer in France and then moved to New Zealand as an HPC systems engineer. I am now leading the national HPC platform operations.
Finally, we are very proud to host CUG 2020 in New Zealand.
I am looking forward to this opportunity to demonstrate my value to the CUG board and to contribute to HPC and the Cray community in the long term.
Yours faithfully,
Fabrice Cantos
Bilel Hadri (King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST))
I have been employed as a computational scientist at the KAUST Supercomputing Lab since July 2013. I’m leading efforts in benchmarking and performance optimization and helping in coordinating strategic efforts for systems procurements, upgrades and providing advanced support to users. I received a Master in Applied Mathematics and a PhD in Computer Science from the University of Houston in 2008. I joined the National Institute for Computational Science at Oak Ridge National Lab as a computational scientist in December 2009 following a Postdoctoral Position in 2008 at the University of Tennessee Innovative Computing Laboratory led by Dr. Jack Dongarra.
I have been active at CUG since 2010,
- through several BoF and paper presentations (won the Best Paper Award CUG 2012 as the lead author of “Software Usage on Cray Systems across Three Centers (NICS, ORNL and CSCS)),
- attending 7 CUG conferences.
- reviewing CUG submissions in different tracks, mainly in applications and user support
- attending all XTREME meeting since 2015
- elected CUG PEAD-SIG chair in 2016 and reelected in 2018
I’m running this year for the Director-at-large position to help the CUG board in different activities such as outreaching to the Cray HPC community, from leadership customers to small sites, helping in social media like Twitter where I’m an active member and one of the community managers at KAUST on HPC activities coordinating with the marketing and communication team. For the last 10 years, I have volunteered at several HPC conferences program committee including SC, ISC, and IPDPS. By joining the CUG board, I look forward to the opportunity to learn from the current board members, and to contribute to improving the quality and quantity of submissions by incorporating best practices from other HPC conferences.
Paul Peltz (Oak Ridge National Lab (ORNL))
Paul Peltz is a Systems Engineer whose focus is on the integration and automation of new and emerging technologies into production environments. He has 20 years of experience in the HPC industry doing procurement, testing, and integration of these new technologies and collaborating with vendors to help improve their products. Before joining Oak Ridge National Laboratory in December 2018, he worked at Los Alamos National Laboratory where he was the systems technical lead on the Trinity project. He was responsible for working with Trinity’s vendor Cray to evaluate and help guide the development of their new software stack on their XC series systems. His other areas of interest are in the modernization of the HPC system software stack to improve the operational efficiency and reliability of our HPC platforms.
Paul is currently the deputy chair for the XTreme SIG and a member of the Compass program. He wishes to join the CUG board in the position of Director-at-Large in order to plan, facilitate, and decide on the direction of the CUG conference to keep it a beneficial learning experience for all who attend.