Postcards from SC25

By Maria E. Adonay, Clemson University Institute for Human Genetics

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I had the wonderful opportunity to attend the Supercomputing Conference for the second year in a row, thanks to STEM-Trek. This year’s event (SC25) was held in St. Louis, MO — my first time visiting the city since childhood! Here’s a look back, told in “postcards.”

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Nov 14–15: Pre-Conference Hello from St. Louis!

The STEM-Trek group kicked off our pre-conference activities at The Post Building, where we heard a variety of talks, including some fascinating geospatial topics. (I left with several ideas about how geospatial analysis options could one day support our own cluster users!) The highlight of the day, though, was coasting down to ground level via the repurposed St. Louis Post Dispatch slide — just like the …

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TANGO@SC25, November 14 – 15

STEM-Trek Nonprofit, in collaboration with Texas A&M University and the Conference on Next-Generation Arithmetic (CoNGA), will host the TANGO workshop ahead of the Supercomputing Conference, SC25, in St. Louis, Missouri. 

TANGO is a celebration of nonTraditional Architecture and Next-Gen Computational Orchestration. No dancing shoes are required to learn how Compute eXpress Link (CXL), RISC-V and Next-Gen Math are driving a revolution toward more energy-efficient supercomputers. TANGO will convene at the America’s Center on November 15 ahead of SC25, which will be in the same location November 16–22. A jetlag day for TANGO international delegates will be held on Friday, November 14. There is no cost to attend the workshop, but you must apply by August 31. Notifications will be sent by September 15.

We are no longer accepting applications. The final schedule will be shared with registered/accepted participants. If you wish to attend and have not registered, please …

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Solidarity through Curiosity

By: Vijay Shankar, Director of Bioinformatics and Statistics, Clemson Center for Human Genetics

I have spent most of my academic career on the user side of high-performance computing (HPC). It is only in the last five years that I have begun to understand what it means to serve on the administrator side of HPC. I, like a few others I met at the ART@SC24 pre-conference workshop and the SC24 conference proper, have walked an atypical path toward the HPC world. My day job is that of a Computational Biologist and Core Director. What I do in between the lulls of academic responsibilities is administer a 40-node DELL EMC cluster owned by the Center for Human Genetics with my core team. Our cluster serves the research needs of approximately 120 users in the field of genetics and genomics at Clemson University. When I began this journey back in 2019, I knew …

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ART@SC24: The Gateway to My Unique SC24 Experience, HPC Creates!

By: Titus Nyarko Nde, PhD in Computing Student at Boise State University

Introduction

With this blog post I’ll share my unique experience at the supercomputing conference (or simply SC24) in Atlanta, Georgia. SC24 is the premiere International Conference for High Performance Computing, Networking, Storage, and Analysis. It was highly recommended during the International High-Performance Computing Summer School (IHPCSS) in Kobe, Japan, by my mentor, Maciej Cytowski. Thanks to Elizabeth Leake (STEM-Trek) for igniting my interest in attending this conference and for initiating the process to fund my trip to Atlanta. She made it all happen and also paid for my accommodation and some fun activities, which I will talk about later in this blog. I also want to thank Leif Nelson and everyone in the Boise State Research Computing Department for sponsoring the remainder of the cost to attend. Special thanks to my Ph.D. advisor, Nancy …

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Old dog, new tricks?

By: Marcus Bond, Professor of Chemistry and Physics, Southeast Missouri State University

“It’s not a sprint, it’s a marathon” declared my dentist in the middle of a recent procedure.  Good advice for surviving SC—and life in general.

SC16 was my first.  This was a conference I never believed I would be able to attend.  But thanks to the support of STEM-Trek have been able to attend most conferences since.  As I vaguely recall from my SC16 blog, I had set a goal during a discussion at the outing to Benihana, to scale the small cluster I was operating in our department, at the time, up to a central research computing system for the university.

 I did not meet that particular timeline or that particular goal. But with some patience and persistence I now involved in a NSF grant funded state-wide project that has seen 12 compute nodes dedicated to undergraduate …

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From Lost Luggage to proFound Insights: My SC24 Journey

by: Senzo Mpungose, Projects and Operations Manager, University of the Witwatersrand

The adventure to Atlanta for the ART@SC24 Preconference and the SC24 Conference began with a test of patience—an airline mishap that saw my luggage taking its own detour. Thankfully, it made a dramatic entrance halfway through the trip, just in time to share in the discoveries and insights of a packed agenda. And what a journey it turned out to be!

ART@SC24 Preconference

The preconference kicked off with a visit to Georgia Tech, a hub of innovation that sets the bar for technological exploration. The tour of Georgia Tech’s Texas Instruments Makerspace, guided by the insightful and perceptive Assistant Director Stevie, was one key highlight. The tour was a goldmine for ideas and inspiration for me and my department, as we are in the midst of developing our own makerspace. Stevie’s advice on resource management, encouraging innovation, and guaranteeing …

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SC24: HPC Creates a More Capable World

By Ntsizi “Oscar” Mphenduli, Senior Laboratory Technician, University of Fort Hare, South Africa

Jet Lag Day at ART@SC24 – A Glimpse of Georgia Tech

On November 15, 2024, ART@SC24 kicked off with its signature “Jet Lag Day,” an engaging day designed to immerse attendees in the innovation hub of Georgia Tech. Here’s a look at the highlights from this fascinating prelude to the main workshop.

Introduction and Orientation

The day began with a warm welcome and logistics briefing by Elizabeth Leake and Bryan Johnston, setting the tone for a full schedule of discovery and collaboration. Participants were introduced to Georgia Tech’s role in the high-performance computing (HPC) and artificial intelligence (AI) landscape.

Sessions and Tours

1. OMSCS Showcase:The Online Master of Science in Computer Science (OMSCS) program at Georgia Tech took center stage. Highlights included:

A historical overview of the program. Insights into African participation and international …

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Peach of a conference – SC24!

By Lara Timm, South African Centre for High-Performance ComputingCover photo: Timm with Bryan Johnston (CHPC) in front of the rainbow steps of the Klaus Computer Science Building at Georgia Tech University.

I feel immensely grateful to have had the opportunity to attend this incredible showcase in Atlanta, Georgia! As a girl from Africa, it’s difficult to even imagine the scale of the production that is the SC conference series. Eight glorious days of conference later, I return to Cape Town feeling fulfilled, invigorated and excited for what’s to come in my career and journey with HPC. How did it all go down you ask?? Well, let me tell you!

Day 1: ART@SC24 Jet-Lag Day

Day one was the first day of ART@SC24, a two-day pre-conference workshop which is an initiative of Elizabeth Leake and STEM-Trek. The ART@SC24 cohort visited Georgia Tech for a day of talks, networking and inspiration! Stand …

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A High-Performance Experience at SC24

By: Kasandra Pillay (Principal Engineer at South African National Research Network (SANReN), National Integrated Cyberinfrastructure System (NICIS), Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), South Africa)

Hi everyone! My name is Kasandra Pillay. I am an engineer at the South African National Research Network (SANReN) in South Africa.

Last year I was unable to attend the Supercomputing Conference in-person due to financial constraints within my organization. We were facing similar challenges this year, but the day was saved by Elizabeth Leake and her super STEM-Trek team, as I was provided funding to attend not only the SC24 conference in-person, but also the pre-workshops and tutorials. This resulted in my organization only having to fund my flight and daily allowance.

I thus headed off to Atlanta, Georgia from Johannesburg, South Africa from 13th to 24th November 2024, on what turned out to be a much longer than expected round trip (airport …

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ART@SC24 and SC24

By Strahinja Trecakov, New Mexico State University

This year I had a chance to attend an amazing ART@SC24 workshop organized by STEM-Trek and Elizabeth Leake. This workshop took place at the World Congress Convention Center on Saturday, November 16 before the International Conference on High-Performance Computing (HPC), Networking, Storage and Analysis, SC24. This was a great start to the busy week in Atlanta where we heard from different HPC center leaders about outreach, training, artificial intelligence (AI), networking and related initiatives. After a busy day, we enjoyed dinner and live entertainment at Medieval Times, thanks to sponsors Dell and Intel.

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