Keynote Speakers Named for RMACC’s HPC Symposium

BOULDER, CO – Al Anderson, Chief Information Officer at Salish Kootenai College (SKC) in Pablo, MT, and Dr. Kayla Sprenger, Assistant Professor in the Chemical and Biological Engineering Department and faculty member in the Biomedical Engineering Program at the University of Colorado Boulder, have been named as keynote speakers for the 14th annual Rocky Mountain Advanced Computing Consortium’s (RMACC) High Performance Computing Symposium in May.

Dr. Sprenger will give the opening Keynote on Tuesday, May 21, and Anderson will speak on Wednesday, May 22.  All sessions for the May 21-23 event will be held at the Wolf Law Center on the campus of the University of Colorado Boulder.

Dr. Kayla Sprenger

Sprenger earned her Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from the University of Washington-Seattle and did postdoctoral studies at MIT’s Institute for Medical Engineering and Science.  Her lab at CU Boulder is focused on multiscale computational approaches to understanding and engineering behavior at complex interfaces, spanning applications from sustainable energy to infectious disease.

She is the recipient of The American Institute of Chemical Engineers’ “35 Under 35 Award” for her work in the broad area of bioengineering.  Her keynote address will revolve around her lab’s infectious disease modeling work.

Anderson has served at SKC for over three decades, molding the landscape of educational technology and infrastructure for an institution that serves students from 53 North American Tribes in 16 U.S. States and Canadian Provinces.   Also a Board Member for the Minority Service Cyberinfrastructure Consortium, he will speak on the topic:  “Cultivating Minds, Connecting Communities:  Cyberinfrastructure at Tribal Colleges.”

He has degrees in Computer Engineering and in Computer Science and has been instrumental in establishing SKC’s Advanced Manufacturing Lab.  A licensed drone pilot, he also helped launch SKC’s academic drone program.

Al Anderson

The RMACC’s multi-track HPC Symposium brings together faculty, researchers, industry leaders and students, offering presentations from industry and educational leaders and a wide array of panel discussions and tutorials.   Several sessions are designed for students and newcomers to HPC, providing the opportunity to learn about HPC careers, according to Becky Yeager, the RMACC’s executive director and coordinator for the Symposium.

She said tudents are able to register at a greatly reduced rate thanks to sponsor support, led by longtime major sponsors like Intel, Dell, HPE, DDN, AWS and Google.

 Registration will open in March.  To see more biographical information about the keynote speakers or to learn more about the RMACC and the HPC Symposium, including opportunities for sponsoring, visit the website: www.rmacc.org.

Primarily a volunteer organization, the RMACC is collaboration among 34 academic and research institutions located in Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah, Washington and Wyoming.  The RMACC’s mission is to facilitate widespread effective use of high performance computing throughout this 9-state intermountain region.