Sudip Dosanjh Named New NERSC Director

Sudip Dosanjh, a leader in extreme-scale computing at Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque, has been named director of the National Energy Research Scientific Computing (NERSC) Division at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.

NERSC is the U.S. Department of Energy’s leading center for computational science, serving more than 4,500 users at universities and national laboratories across the country. Dosanjh will be the sixth director of NERSC, which was established in 1974. His tentative start date is November 2012.

“As one of the world’s best-known centers for computational science, NERSC helps the nation’s science community advance discovery by tapping into the capabilities of petascale supercomputers” Dosanjh said. “NERSC will need to work closely with the research community to ensure that scientific progress continues through the disruption in computer architectures that is underway.”

Dosanjh is currently the group lead for extreme-scale computing at Sandia, and co-led the development of the exascale technology roadmap that was presented at the DOE Architectures and Technology workshop in December 2009. He has given numerous presentations on exascale computing and played a key role in establishing co-design as a DOE strategy for achieving exascale computing. Earlier in his career, Dosanjh worked extensively in developing large-scale parallel scientific applications in areas such as materials modeling, nuclear reactor safety, combustion and heat transfer.

“In addition to his leadership in the field of exascale computing, Sudip also brings experience in developing productive partnerships in areas such as computer architecture and algorithms, and managing research programs—all of which make him well suited to lead NERSC,” said Berkeley Lab Associate Laboratory Director Kathy Yelick. “As an experienced computational scientist and recognized leader, Sudip will also help us continue to provide innovative services to users and to attract the best people to the NERSC organization.”

Yelick has served as NERSC Director since January 2008. She announced her intention to step down earlier this year to focus on her duties as Associate Laboratory Director for Computing Sciences, which comprises NERSC, the Computational Research Division and DOE’s Energy Sciences Network (ESnet).

Dosanjh joined Sandia National Labs in 1986 and has held a number of positions, all involving high performance computing and computational science. Currently he manages Sandia’s Computer Systems and Software Environments (CSSE) Program, which is funded by DOE’s Advanced Simulation and Computing (ASC) Program. He is co-director of the Alliance for Computing at Extreme Scale (ACES), a Los Alamos/Sandia center that designs, deploys and operates capability supercomputers for the ASC program. He also served on DOE’s Exascale Initiative Steering Committee for several years.

He earned his bachelor’s degree in engineering physics in 1982, his master’s degree (1984) and Ph.D. (1986) in mechanical engineering. All three of his degrees were earned at the University of California, Berkeley.