National Center for Computational Sciences

HPCwire has named Suzy Tichenor of Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) to its “People to Watch in 2010” list. Tichenor launched an industrial partnerships program in the computing and computational sciences directorate that provides American companies access to the two leadership-class high-performance computing (HPC) centers at Oak Ridge. Tomas Tabor, publisher of HPCwire, presented Tichenor with the award Nov. 19 at the 2009 International Conference for High Performance Computing, Networking, Storage and Analysis (SC09) in Portland, Ore. The list was published in the Jan. 4 issue of HPCwire.

“No other center or lab has someone this well positioned to tackle the issue of tech transfer to U.S. industry,” said Tabor, lauding Tichenor’s industry roots with Cray, her championing of HPC as a strategic initiative for American industry as vice president of the Council on Competitiveness, and her current positioning to leverage the assets of one of the world’s preeminent laboratories. He explained that laboratories and centers are often instructed to pass along technologies to improve the U.S. competitive advantage—but that this is easier said than done.

“Suzy understands the business value proposition and knows where the low hanging fruit is. For example, U.S. corporations are most likely to realize immediate benefit from HPC,” he said. “She knows HPC technologies, how to position the competitive pitch, and understands other collaborative initiatives in HPC. She is with a world-class facility and should be someone to watch as she moves into her second year at ORNL pulling this all together.”

Tichenor’s program provides companies access to the Department of Energy-funded “Jaguar,” the most powerful supercomputer in the world, and “Kraken,” the most powerful academic supercomputer, funded by the National Science Foundation through a partnership with the University of Tennessee. Companies are able to use these HPC systems to tackle their toughest computational problems. These are the challenges whose solutions provide breakthrough scientific understanding and competitive opportunity. In the process, companies also advance their abilities to use leadership computing.

“Research has shown that most companies have complex, competitively important problems that far exceed their in-house computing capabilities,” Tichenor said. “Instead of simplifying these challenges or ignoring them, companies can bring them to Oak Ridge. Our industrial partnerships program provides access to the most capable HPC systems in the world, and unsurpassed expertise to help companies use them effectively.”

–by Dawn Levy