FRANKFURT, Germany, May 16, 2017 – The ISC Group, the organizer of ISC High Performance, is very pleased to announce the appointment of Prof. Horst Simon of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab), USA, as the program chairman for ISC 2018. This new appointment not only enriches the international nature of ISC, it also brings a unique perspective to the yearly conference.

The 2018 conference will once again be held at Forum Messe Frankfurt, from June 24 to June 28, 2018.

As program chair, Horst Simon will be working closely with the ISC program team to define the ISC 2018 topics, whilst also leading the 2018 steering committee in an effort to further elevate the value of ISC High Performance for the high performance computing (HPC) community. He will be replacing the 2017 program chair, Prof. Jack Dongarra of the University of Tennessee. The position of the annually rotating ISC program chair was first created in 2015 to establish a continuous knowledge sharing process with HPC leaders who play a pivotal role in advancing the field of HPC.

Simon is the Deputy Laboratory Director and Chief Research Officer of Berkeley Lab. He serves as management liaison to the University of California, the Department of Energy, and other public and private agencies and programs to represent the laboratories programs, accomplishments, and initiatives. Simon has been with Berkeley Lab since 1996, having served previously as Associate Laboratory Director for Computing Sciences, and Director of the National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center (NERSC). In his role as Deputy Director, Simon has been instrumental in the creation of new concepts such as Cyclotron Road and CalCharge that support energy innovation and forge stronger connections between the national labs and industry.

Outside his executive role at Berkeley Lab, Simon is an internationally recognized expert in the development of parallel computational methods for the solution of scientific problems of scale. His expertise and research interests are centered on algorithmic development for sparse matrix operations, large-scale eigenvalue problems, and domain decomposition methods. Simon has been honored twice with the prestigious Gordon Bell Prize – in 2009, for the development of innovative techniques that produce new levels of performance on a real application (in collaboration with IBM researchers) and in 1988, in recognition of superior effort in parallel processing research (with others from Cray and Boeing).

Within the HPC community, Simon plays another significant role as the co-editor of the TOP500 project. His TOP500 colleagues rely on his knowledge and connections to verify the existence of systems that vendors claim to have installed and submitted for inclusion in the biannual TOP500 List.

“I have been attending ISC conference series since the early 1990s, and as supercomputing has grown in its importance in scientific and industrial applications, ISC has evolved from a meeting of a small group of technical experts into an international conference of wide geographical reach and deep scientific impact,” remarked Simon. “It is an honor to serve as the ISC 2018 Program Chair, and I will strive to further strengthen the technical program, broaden the community reach, and assure a welcoming and inclusive conference for a diverse group of participants.”

The organizers are confident that next year’s conference will once again emerge as Europe’s most significant HPC forum, offering talks that encompass an array of unique topics and speakers. The organizers also look forward to announcing the 2018 focus topics and the appointment of various committee chairs within the next couple of weeks.

About ISC High Performance

First held in 1986, ISC High Performance is the world’s oldest and Europe’s most important conference and networking event for the HPC community. It offers a strong five-day technical program focusing on HPC technological development and its application in scientific fields, as well as its adoption in commercial environments.

ISC High Performance attracts engineers, IT specialists, system developers, vendors, scientists, researchers, students, journalists, and other members of the HPC global community. The exhibition draws decision-makers from automotive, finance, defense, aeronautical, gas & oil, banking, pharmaceutical and other industries, as well those providing hardware, software and services for the HPC community. Attendees will learn firsthand about new products and applications, in addition to the latest technological advances in the HPC industry.

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Source: ISC