SciDAC 2009

Abstract

By almost any measure, the SciDAC community has come a long way since DOE launched the SciDAC program back in 2001. At the time, we were grappling with how to efficiently run applications on terascale systems (the November 2001 TOP500 list was led by DOE's ASCI White IBM system at Lawrence Livermore achieving 7.2 teraflop/s). And the results stemming from the first round of SciDAC projects were summed up in two-page reports. The scientific results were presented at annual meetings, which were by invitation only and typically were attended by about 75 researchers.Fast forward to 2009 and we now have SciDAC Review, a quarterly magazine showcasing the scientific computing contributions of SciDAC projects and related programs, all focused on presenting a comprehensive look at Scientific Discovery through Advanced Computing. That is also the motivation behind the annual SciDAC conference that in 2009 was held from June 14–18 in San Diego.The annual conference, which can also be described as a celebration of all things SciDAC, grew out those meetings organized in the early days of the program. In 2005, the meeting was held in San Francisco and attendance was opened up to all members of the SciDAC community. The schedule was also expanded to include a keynote address, plenary speakers and other features found in a conference format. This year marks the fifth such SciDAC conference, which now comprises four days of computational science presentations, multiple poster sessions and, since last year, an evening event showcasing simulations and modeling runs resulting from SciDAC projects. The fifth annual SciDAC conference was remarkable on several levels. The primary purpose, of course, is to showcase the research accomplishments resulting from SciDAC programs in particular and computational science in general. It is these accomplishments, represented in 38 papers and 52 posters, that comprise this set of conference proceedings. These proceedings can stand alone as evidence of the success of DOE's innovative SciDAC efforts.But from the outset, a critical driver for the program was to foster increased collaboration among researchers across disciplines and organizations. In particular, SciDAC wanted to engage scientists at universities in the projects, both to expand the community and to develop the next generation of computational scientists. At the meeting in San Diego, the fruits of this emphasis were clearly visible, from the special poster session highlighting the work of the DOE Computational Science Graduate Fellows, to the informal discussions in hotel hallways, to focused side meetings apart from the main presentations.A highlight of the meeting was the keynote address by Dr Ray Orbach, until recently the DOE Under Secretary for Science and head of the Office of Science. It was during his tenure that the first round of projects matured and the second set of SciDAC projects were launched. And complementing these research projects was Dr Orbach's vision for INCITE, DOE's Innovative and Novel Computational Impact on Theory and Experiment program, inaugurated in 2003. This program allocated significant HPC resources to scientists tackling high-impact problems, including some of those addressed by SciDAC teams. Together, SciDAC and INCITE are dramatically accelerating the field of computational science.As has been noted before, the SciDAC conference celebrates progress in advancing science through large-scale modeling and simulation. Over 400 people registered to attend this year's talks, poster sessions and tutorials, all spanning the disciplines supported by DOE. While the principal focus was on SciDAC accomplishments, this year's conference also included invited presentations and posters from colleagues whose research is supported by other agencies. At the 2009 meeting we also formalized a developing synergy with the Department of Defense's HPC Users Group Meeting, which has occasionally met in parallel with the SciDAC meeting. But in San Diego, we took the additional steps of organizing a joint poster session and a joint plenary session, further advancing opportunities for broader networking. Throughout the four-day program, attendees at both meetings had the option of sitting in on sessions at either conference. We also included several of the NSF Petascale applications in the program, and have also extended invitations to our computational colleagues in other federal agencies, including the National Science Foundation, NASA, and the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration, as well as international collaborators to join us in San Diego.In 2009 we also reprised one of the more popular sessions from Seattle in 2008, the Electronic Visualization and Poster Night, during which 29 scientific visualizations were presented on high-resolution large-format displays. The best entries were awarded one of the coveted ‘OASCR Awards.’ The conference also featured a session about breakthroughs in computational science, based on the ‘Breakthrough Report’ that was published in 2008, led by Tony Mezzacappa (ORNL). Tony was also the chair of the SciDAC 2005 conference.For the third consecutive year, the conference was followed by a day of tutorials organized by the SciDAC Outreach Center and aimed primarily at students interested in scientific computing. This year, nearly 100 participants attended the tutorials, hosted by the San Diego Supercomputer Center and General Atomics.This outreach to the broader community is really what SciDAC is all about – Scientific Discovery through Advanced Computing. Such discoveries are not confined by organizational lines, but rather are often the result of researchers reaching out and collaborating with others, using their combined expertise to push our boundaries of knowledge. I am happy to see that this vision is shared by so many researchers in computational science, who all decided to join SciDAC 2009.While credit for the excellent presentations and posters goes to the teams of researchers, the success of this year's conference is due to the strong efforts and support from members of the 2009 SciDAC Program Committee and Organizing Committee, and I would like to extend my heartfelt thanks to them for helping to make the 2009 meeting the largest and most successful to date.Program Committee members were: David Bader, LLNL; Pete Beckman, ANL; John Bell, LBNL; John Boisseau, University of Texas; Paul Bonoli, MIT; Hank Childs, LBNL; Bill Collins, LBNL; Jim Davenport, BNL; David Dean, ORNL; Thom Dunning, NCSA; Peg Folta, LLNL; Glenn Hammond, PNNL; Maciej Haranczyk, LBNL; Robert Harrison, ORNL; Paul Hovland, ANL; Paul Kent, ORNL; Aram Kevorkian, SPAWAR; David Keyes, Columbia University; Kwok Ko, SLAC; Felice Lightstone, LLNL; Bob Lucas, ISI/USC; Paul Mackenzie, Fermilab; Tony Mezzacappa, ORNL; John Negele, MIT; Jeff Nichols, ORNL; Mike Norman, UCSD; Joe Oefelein, SNL; Jeanie Osburn, NRL; Peter Ostroumov, ANL; Valerio Pascucci, University of Utah; Ruth Pordes, Fermilab; Rob Ross, ANL; Nagiza Samatova, ORNL; Martin Savage, University of Washington; Tim Scheibe, PNNL; Ed Seidel, NSF; Arie Shoshani, LBNL; Rick Stevens, ANL; Bob Sugar, UCSB; Bill Tang, PPPL; Bob Wilhelmson, NCSA; Kathy Yelick, NERSC/LBNL; Dave Zachmann, Vista Computational Technology LLC.Organizing Committee members were: Communications: Jon Bashor, LBNL. Contracts/Logistics: Mary Spada and Cheryl Zidel, ANL. Posters: David Bailey, LBNL. Proceedings: John Hules, LBNL. Proceedings Database Developer: Beth Cerny Patino, ANL. Program Committee Liaison/Conference Web Site: Yeen Mankin, LBNL. Tutorials: David Skinner, NERSC/LBNL. Visualization Night: Hank Childs, LBNL; Valerio Pascucci, Chems Touati, Nathan Galli, and Erik Jorgensen, University of Utah. Again, my thanks to all. Horst Simon San Diego, California June 18, 2009