Abstract

March 13, 2006

Title:The Technology of Evolution
Presented by: Dr. Francine Berman, Director, San Diego Supercomputer Center Professor and HPC Endowed Chair, UC San Diego

Video Podcast

Abstract

Over the last few decades, science and engineering have become increasingly technology-enabled. Today's scientists and engineers draw from a rich spectrum of information technologies and resources including laboratory and departmental computers and clusters, hand-held "field" devices, scientific instruments providing a deluge of data, high-performance "center" resources capable of running large-scale simulations and analyses, and more. As the technological environment for scientists and engineers becomes more ubiquitous and more capable, it becomes increasingly important to integrate and coordinate technology resources "end-to-end" to support ever more cooperative, large-scale, and complex scientific endeavors.

In this talk, we explore the role of coordinated information technologies in enabling researchers to address some of the most fundamental challenges in science and engineering. We explore how information technology has enabled new discoveries and advances which underlie our understanding of the evolution of the heavens, the evolution of the earth, and the evolution of culture. We also discuss the evolution of information technology itself, and the continuous bootstrapping process that furthers both scientific progress and technology capability.

Biography

Francine Berman is a pioneer in grid computing and a leader in the national effort to build a comprehensive modern infrastructure to support research in science and engineering. Dr. Berman directs the San Diego Supercomputer Center, an organized research unit of UCSD, whose mission is to develop and use technology to advance science. Dr. Berman also directs the National Partnership for Advanced Computational Infrastructure, a consortium of 41 research groups, institutions, and university partners with the goal of building a national infrastructure to improve and extend the reach of science and engineering.

She is one of two principal investigators of the NSF-supported TeraGrid, the largest coordinated grid deployment project to date. Her academic research during the past two decades has focused on high-performance and grid computing, in particular in the areas of programming environments, adaptive middleware, scheduling, and performance prediction. Most recently, she has led or co-led the AppLeS (Application-Level Scheduling) Project, the design and development of adaptive middleware for Grid environments, and the large NSF "Virtual Instrument/MCell" Information Technology Research project. Her research interests include: high-performance and grid computing, programming environments, adaptive middleware, scheduling, and performance predication.