Author: Swabir Silayi

Advancing Research with Deep Learning and High-Performance Computing:
Join Our Spring Meeting

What 

Discover how two leading professors leverage GPUs and HPC to address vital research questions. Don’t miss the chance to explore exciting HPC research and unique workflows shaping its global impact. Engage in the discussion and interact with speakers during the Q&A session. Be part of the dialogue at this exceptional opportunity.

When

Tuesday, February 6^th 2024  

1:00 pm – 2:00 pm

Register Now!     

Speakers:

Dr. Daniel Runfola – Associate Professor and Graduate Director of Applied Science and Data Science at William & Mary

Title: Large Scope Analysis of Satellite Data in HPC Environments

Dan Runfola is an Associate Professor and Graduate Director of Applied Science and Data Science at William & Mary. His core expertise is in the applied use of machine learning to analyze satellite data to better understand the relationships between societies and the environment at a global scale. In addition to over 40 peer reviewed academic publications in high profile outlets including Nature, Dan has published numerous reports with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, UN FAO, Global Environment Facility, and as a contributor to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.   He has received over 5 million dollars in research funding from a wide range of organizations, including the National Science Foundation, Department of Homeland Security, Gates Foundation, Cloudera Foundation, Global Environment Facility, and the Commonwealth Cyber Initiative.  In addition to his Ph.D. and postdoctoral group, Dan also runs one of the largest undergraduate research groups on campus in the geoLab.

Dr. Priscilla Erickson – Assistant Professor of Biology, University of Richmond

Title: Studying evolution in real time with an invasive fruit fly

Priscilla began her studies in biology at Kenyon College in Ohio, where she studied the effect of stress on life history traits in birds. She did her PhD work in Craig Miller’s lab at UC Berkeley, studying the genetic and developmental basis of skeletal evolution in threespine stickleback fish. For her postdoc, she studied the evolution of fruit flies over seasonal timescales with Alan Bergland at the University of Virginia. After a brief stint as a visiting faculty member, she joined the Biology department at the University of Richmond full time in Fall 2021. Outside of work, Priscilla loves swimming, hiking, rock climbing, working on her native plant gardens, and hanging out with her dog, Mindy (who also enjoys helping out with fly maintenance).

Moderator:

Eric Walter – Executive Director, Research Computing, William & Mary

This virtual event is jointly hosted by Virginia Commonwealth University, George Mason University, Virginia Tech, William & Mary, University of Richmond, Virginia Institute of Marine Science, Old Dominion University, and the University of Virginia.

—

URL https://va-whpc.org/

Topic:  The world’s most nerdy game show 

Date & Time: Aug 1, 2023, 01:00 PM 

Description

Add to your summer fun! Put your hard-earned knowledge to work! Join us via Zoom on August 1st at 1 pm for fun, laughs, and prizes in the first VA-WHPC online computing trivia game.  Random teams will be assigned to breakout rooms and asked questions about HPC and computing in general. Come share your knowledge with your peers and colleagues and if you’re lucky, walk away with some free stuff!

Register Now!

Moderated by the VA-WHPC committee

Prizes Sponsored by NVIDIA This virtual event is jointly hosted by Virginia Commonwealth University, George Mason University, Virginia Tech, William & Mary, University of Richmond, Virginia Institute of Marine Science, Old Dominion University, ACCESS, and the University of Virginia.

Summer 2023 AI Bootcamp for CI Professionals: Software and Data Facing Track (SDFT)
When: May 16^th – June 15^th, Tuesday and Thursday, 2-4pm EDT
No meetings the week of May 29^th


 This Summer we are building on the CFT by offering an AI bootcamp targeting CI professionals who focus on software stacks and data workflows. If you maintain simulation and data analysis software on shared research computing systems or develop research software in collaboration with researchers; this bootcamp is for you.  But we welcome any of you who would like to learn more. We will provide a deeper dive on the subjects visited in the CFT by walking through the steps in a typical AI pipeline. We’ll cover best practices and state of the art software and tools for ML/DL and we’ll discuss common pitfalls and debugging strategies and tools. Of course, we’ll cover scaling up at each step.  We are also excited to be hosting a special session on AI accelerators during this bootcamp. The session will have guest presenters from SDSC, PSC and HPRC at TAMU to introduce the Voyager Habana Gaudi processors, the Neocortex Cerebrus system, and the ACES II Graphcore IPUs.

 

Follow this link to the Registration:
Take the Survey

Or copy and paste the URL below into your internet browser:
https://osu.az1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_6RTTPh1t3Z5QA5M?Q_DL=xtsE8tOPH6zyERy_6RTTPh1t3Z5QA5M_MLRP_6qTj57qrW5xHtA2&Q_CHL=email

Virginia Women in HPC (VA-WHPC ): Student Lightning Talks

What

Join us in welcoming 11 undergraduate and graduate students from across Virginia to talk about their research. The talks will be lightning style format allowing 3 minutes for students to present and 1-2 questions and 1-2 questions from the audience. Don’t miss out on this fantastic opportunity to hear about a variety of research topics within HPC!

Time:

Tuesday, April 4th, 2023 at 1:00 pm – 2:00 pm EST

Register Now!

Featured Speakers:

• Lakshmi Miller – Graduate Student

Aerospace and Ocean Engineering, Virginia Tech

“CFD Informed Maneuvering of AUVs”

• Rashmi Chawla – Graduate Student

Aerospace Engineering, Virginia Tech

“Multiphysics Modeling of UHTCs using Material Point Method”

• Naina Pisharoti – Graduate Student

Aerospace Engineering, Virginia Tech

“High-fidelity Computational Analysis of UAV Propellers”

• Liza Harold – Undergraduate Student

Biomedical Engineering, University of Virginia

“Investigating the role of Stereocomplexation in Peptide Assembly via Molecular Dynamics Simulations”

• Clare Cocker – Undergraduate Student

Chemical Engineering, University of Virginia

“Role of amino acid stereochemistry in the assembly of peptide hydrogels for tissue engineering”

• Marion LoPresti – Undergraduate Student

Biochemistry, Virginia Tech

“Utilizing HPC to Explore the Dynamics of the Druggable Dengue Virus Protease”

• Nhi Huynh – Graduate Student

Engineering and Technology, Old Dominion University

“RSM: To Increasing the Capacity of the Deep GCN (Graph Convolution Neural) Image”

• Sarah Patterson – Undergraduate Student

Developmental Biology, William & Mary

“Single Cell RNA Sequencing in Xenopus Laevis Embryology”

• Cynthia Sias – Graduate Student

Plant and Environmental Sciences, Virginia Tech

“Evaluating the Effect of Cover Crop Termination Management on Palmer Amaranth (Amaranthus palmeri) Suppression in Soybean”

• Afrina Tabassum – Graduate Student

Computer Science, Virginia Tech

“Multimodal Learning: Representation and Generation”

• Mahshid Ahmadian – Graduate Student

Systems Modeling and Analysis, Virginia Commonwealth University

“Modeling Salmon shark’s location in the Pacific ocean using stochastic process approach”

Moderators:

•  Mark Gardner – Network Research Manager, Advanced Research Computing, Virginia Tech
• Heather Baier – Ph.D. Student in Computational Geography, William & Mary

This virtual event is jointly hosted by Virginia Commonwealth University, George Mason University, Virginia Tech, William & Mary, University of Richmond, Virginia Institute of  Marine Science, Old Dominion University, and the University of Virginia.  

Please check our website: https://va-whpc.org/event/va-whpc-student-lightning-talks/

Attached you will find the event flyer (PDF) if you would like to share it with others.

What:

Let’s welcome 2023 with a community event to hear from female leaders in the IT & HPC field sharing challenges and successes experienced throughout their careers. Don’t miss this fantastic opportunity to learn about career strategies and contribute to our discussion of how the playing field may be leveled to offer equitable IT & HPC leadership opportunities for women and minorities. Attendees are invited to share their own experiences and engage with panelists during this interactive Q&A session.

Time:

January 31st, 2023 at 1:00 pm – 2:00 pm EST

Featured Panelists

● Virginia Evans– Former Vice President and Chief Information Officer (CIO) at the University of Virginia

● Shannon Phillips – Director of IT Service Operations for University Libraries at Virginia Tech

 Moderator – Karsten Siller – Director of User Services, Research Computing at University of Virginia

REGISTER NOW!

—

Speaker’s bio

• Virginia Evans – Former Vice President and Chief Information Officer (CIO) at the University of Virginia 

Virginia Evans is the former vice president and chief information officer (CIO) at the University of Virginia, where she was responsible for planning and delivering central IT infrastructure, applications, IT support, and information security and IT policy, as well as research computing for the University.

Ms. Evans has over 35 years of IT experience, ranging from IT consulting with Andersen Consulting (now Accenture) and independent IT consulting, to 30 years managing IT at the University of Virginia at both the central and school levels.  She is an active participant in national IT organizations of large research universities—CSG (Common Solutions Group) and RUCC (Research University CIO group), as well as Internet2.

Ms. Evans holds a B.S. degree with a concentration in Accounting from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and an M.S. degree in Management Information Systems from the University of Virginia’s McIntire School of Commerce, where she has also served as an adjunct professor, teaching classes at the graduate level.

• Shannon Phillips – Director of IT Service Operations for University Libraries at Virginia Tech 

Shannon Phillips is the Director of IT Service Operations for University Libraries at Virginia Tech. In her current position, she is responsible for leading the IT professionals who provide support desk services, desktop support, systems support, technology training, and IT policy compliance across all University Libraries locations.

Shannon is an IT professional with more than twenty years experience working for several public universities across the Commonwealth of Virginia.  Past positions held include Director of Technology Support Services, Director of Instructional Technologies, and Associate Director for Academic Computing. Shannon holds a BA in Music as well as an MAEd from Virginia Tech. Her graduate studies were focused in instructional design and instructional technology.

—

This virtual event is jointly hosted by Virginia Commonwealth University, George Mason University, Virginia Tech, William & Mary, University of Richmond, Virginia Institute of Marine Science, and the University of Virginia.  Please check our website: https://va-whpc.org

Attached you will find the event flyer (PDF) if you would like to share it with others.

P.S. The VA Women in High Performance Computing program is holding a logo competition!  

VA-WHPC will soon be applying to become an official chapter of the international WHPC organization, and we would love to have a logo for our chapter that was designed by one of our community members. There will be a cash prize of $500 given to the selected logo (contributed by Cambridge Computer Services).