Fernbach and Cray awards announced

Recipients for the prestigious Sidney Fernbach and Semour Cray awards, both presented in ceremonies at SCxy, have been announced.

David Keyes of Columbia is first up with the Fernbach, given by the IEEE Computer Society for “innovative uses of high performance computing in problem solving” each year.

Dr. Keyes is world-renowned for contributions to “Newton-Krylov-Schwarz” methods for the efficient solution of nonlinear partial differential equations on high performance computers. These methods are at the heart of many applications, including aerodynamics, radiation transport, acoustics, and magnetohydrodynamics. They have been incorporated into open mathematical software libraries that have enabled hundreds of users to make efficient use of parallel computers, from small clusters to the world’s largest computers. He also has played a major role in the high-performance computing community through his professional service and leadership of the DOE SciDAC TOPS center.

Details at SC Online.

Next up is Kenneth Batcher of Kent State University for the Seymour Cray Science and Engineering Award, given by the IEEE Computer Society for “innovative contributions to high performance computer systems that exemplify the creative spirit of Seymour Cray.” A high honor indeed.

Batcher, a Professor of Computer Science at Kent State University, is being recognized for fundamental theoretical and practical contributions to massively parallel computation, which involve distributing jobs across thousands of processors. His work has involved parallel sorting algorithms, interconnection networks, and pioneering designs of the STARAN and MPP computers.

Details at SC Online.