Experiencing HPC for Undergraduates

The Experiencing HPC for Undergraduates program gives undergraduate students at the sophomore level and above an introduction to HPC research topics and techniques. The program introduces various aspects of HPC research at the SC15 conference to participants to give them a better understanding of opportunities to perform research as an undergraduate and potentially in graduate school. This information is also useful in deciding on career options related to HPC topics in computer science and computational science.

The program contains selected parts of the main SC Technical Program, with several additional elements. Special sessions include panels with current graduate students in HPC areas to discuss graduate school and research, and panels with senior HPC researchers from universities, government and industrial labs to discuss career opportunities in HPC fields.

The program covers travel expenses for students to attend SC15, including registration for the full Technical Program at the conference.

Schedule
All sessions will be held in Room 404 in the Hilton Hotel next to the Austin Convention Center.

Experiencing HPC for Undergraduates Opening Reception
2-3 p.m. Monday, Nov. 16
This session is a “meet and greet” for students in the program and HPC for Undergraduates Chair Alan Sussman.

Experiencing HPC for Undergraduates Orientation
3- 5 p.m. Monday, Nov. 16
This session will provide an introduction to HPC for the participants in the HPC for Undergraduates Program. Topics will include an introduction to MPI, shared memory programming, domain decomposition and the typical structure of scientific programming. Presenter:

• Alan Sussman, University of Maryland

Experiencing HPC for Undergraduates: Introduction to HPC Research
10:30 a.m.-12 p.m., Tuesday, Nov. 17
A panel of leading practitioners in HPC will introduce the various aspects of HPC, including architecture, applications, programming models and tools. Speakers are:

• Wu Feng, Virginia Tech
• Marc Snir, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and Argonne National Laboratory  View Marc Snir's presentation
• Karen Karavanic, Portland State University  View Karen Karavanic's presentation
• Srinivas Aluru, Georgia Institute of Technology  View Srivinas Aluru's presentation

Experiencing HPC for Undergraduates: Graduate Student Perspective
10:30 a.m.-12 p.m., Wednesday, Nov. 18
This session will be held as a panel discussion. Current graduate students, some of whom are candidates for the Best Student Paper Award in the Technical Papers program at SC15, will discuss their experiences in being a graduate student in an HPC discipline. They will also talk about the process of writing their award-nominated paper. Speakers are:

• Ang Li, Eindhoven University of Technology
• Patrick Flick, Georgia Institute of Technology
• Dipanjan Sengupta, Georgia Institute of Technology
• Akshay Venkatesh, Ohio State University
• Ray Chen, University of Maryland
• Jarrod McClean, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

Experiencing HPC for Undergraduates: Careers in HPC
10:30 a.m.-12 p.m., Thursday, Nov. 19
This panel will feature a number of distinguished members of the HPC research community discussing their varied career paths. The panel includes representatives from industry, government labs and universities. The session will include ample time for questions from the audience.

• Liz Jessup, University of Colorado
• Michela Taufer, University of Delaware
• Bernd Mohr, Juelich Supercomputing Centre
• Dan Katz, National Science Foundation and University of Chicago
• Michael Wolfe, Portland Group
• Steve Parker, NVIDIA

Questions? Write to HPCundergrads@info.supercomputing.org