Category: News

The ORC will perform maintenance activities over the Spring Break week March 13th through March 17th. These activities will cause disruption to normal ORC services . Virtual Machine systems and storage servers and services may be unavailable for periods during the week.

The HOPPER and ARGO clusters will be down from 6 AM on 03/13/2023 through 6 AM on 03/15/2023. A maintenance reservation has been created on all nodes. Jobs submitted between now and the start of the maintenance must be submitted with time limits such that they will complete before the start of the maintenance window, otherwise they will be held until after 6am on 03/15/2023.

For the same reason, there will be no New User tutorial for Tuesday 03/14/2023. The tutorials will resume on Thursday 3/16/2023.

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!

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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.

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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).

VA-WHPC members, 

Inspiring Diversity and Inclusion Panel session is almost here, you don’t have to miss it.

Please register to join us!

Virginia Women in HPC (VA-WHPC) – Inspiring Diversity and Inclusion

Topic: 

Empowering and expanding the role of women and minorities in HPC

What:

Join our panel of research computing professionals to discuss ways to increase inclusive excellence in HPC! This quarter’s panel discussion will touch upon challenges to being a woman or minority in the field of HPC, how those challenges can be addressed, lessons learned, HPC early career perspectives, as well as means to improving diversity and inclusion in the workplace.  Attendees are invited to share their own experiences and engage with panelists during this interactive Q&A session.

Time: 

 August 10, 2022 01:00 PM EST

Featured Panelist:

• Jackie Milhans – Associate Director, Research Computing Services, Northwestern University
• Lara Timm – HPC Engineer, Center for High Performance Computing, Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR)
• Rachel Spraker – Senior Director for Equity and Inclusive Excellence, Division for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, University of Virginia
• Moderator – Eric Walter, William & Mary

Register Now!

Speaker’s bio

• Jackie Milhans, Ph.D. Associate Director, Research Computing Services at Northwestern University
  Website Link: https://www.linkedin.com/in/milhans/
  Jackie is the Associate Director of Northwestern Research Computing Services. In this role, she is responsible for building relationships with and gathering research support requirements from deans, faculty, and University leadership. She leads the development of new services to address emerging technology and compliance requirements in the diverse breadth of research domains at Northwestern. She is responsible for the long-term strategic planning for research support and delivering a portfolio of computational, data science, data management, cloud, and visualization support services for faculty, student, and staff researchers.
  Jackie serves on a number of committees and working groups, including recently serving as Co-Lead for the EDUCAUSE Research Computing and Data Community Group, Co-Founder and Co-Chair of the Northwestern IT Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Steering committee, and Co-Chair for the PEARC21 Program Committee.
  She has a passion for learning and sharing methods to build and lead effective, engaged, and diverse teams through improved hiring and management practices, as well as ensuring an equitable and inclusive workplace. She has presented at various conferences over the past several years on topics including diversity, equity, and inclusion; management; and research computing and data. She completed her PhD in Materials Science and Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology and her BS in Materials Science and Engineering at Carnegie Mellon University. She completed her Postdoc at Los Alamos National Laboratory.
• Lara Timm: HPC Engineer at Advanced Computer Engineering (ACE) Lab, Centre for High Performance Computing (CHPC), Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), South Africa
  Talk Title: Finding your fit in HPC: An early career perspective
• Website Link: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lara-timm-59618b14a/
• With a background in biomedical and electrical engineering, Lara is new to the field of HPC. She started her HPC journey in a graduate role at the Centre for High-Performance Computing (CHPC) in Cape Town, South Africa. She now holds the title HPC Engineer in the Advanced Computed Engineering Lab at the CHPC. Here, efforts are focused on pursuing research avenues in HPC as well as HCD activities, collaboration, and outreach. Lara is passionate about sharing her experiences, in HPC and otherwise, with a special interest in cloud technologies, infrastructure as code, HCD and outreach. Lara has a keen interest in the WHPC community – she was an early career presenter at the WHPC workshop at ISC22.
• Rachel Spraker: Senior Director for Equity and Inclusive Excellence at the University of  Virginia
  
  

Talk Title: Advancing Equity and Inclusion in the Workplace
Website Link: https://dei.virginia.edu/people/rachel-spraker
Rachel Spraker (she/they) is the Senior Director for Equity and Inclusive Excellence with the Division for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. Rachel serves UVA in the Office for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion as well as the Office for Equal Opportunity and Civil Rights. Rachel develops, implements, and evaluates policies, practices, and programs which seek to advance the representational diversity, inclusive capacity, and sense of belonging of the University’s workforce and learning community. Rachel has previously served on the executive board of the American Association for Access, Equity, and Diversity and as an equity consultant for institutions of higher education.  Rachel holds a Master of Science in Sociology from Virginia Commonwealth University with work focused on landscapes of racial violence and is currently a part-time doctoral student at UVA in the School of Education and Human Development.

This virtual event is jointly hosted by Virginia Commonwealth University, George Mason University, Virginia Tech, William & Mary, University of Richmond, and Research Computing at 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.

Regards, 

—

Gladys K. Andino, PhD 

Senior Computational Scientist

Founder and Chair of  VA-WHPC 

University of Virginia (UVA)
Research Computing

E [email protected]

Virginia Women in HPC

Supercomputing For Everyone

When

April 27^th, 2022
1:00 pm – 2:00 pm

Topic: The High-Performance Computing landscape at VA-WHPC member institutions.

What

Our panel of research computing professionals will describe available infrastructure and support resources with an overview of their home institutions’ HPC user base.  Challenges and learning curves involved in using HPC effectively will also be discussed.  Attendees are invited to share their own experiences and engage with panelists during this interactive Q&A session.

Featured Panelists

• Matt Brown – Virginia Tech
• Jayshree Sarma – George Mason University
• Carol Parish – University of Richmond
• Eric Walter – William & Mary
• Mike Davis – Virginia Commonwealth University
• Jacalyn Huband – University of Virginia

Moderator – Gladys Andino, University of Virginia

Register Now!

This virtual event is jointly hosted by Virginia Commonwealth University, George Mason University, Virginia Tech, William & Mary, University of Richmond, and Research Computing at the University of Virginia.

VA-WHPC-event flyer