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CCT hires NASA Jet Propulsion Lab computing expert
The Center for Computation & Technology at LSU has announced the hire of high-performance computing expert Daniel S. Katz. Katz has left his position as an information systems and computer science principal at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., to come to Baton Rouge as assistant director at CCT, heading its Scientific Computing Systems and Software group, or SCSS. The SCSS group is a new organization that will design, develop and prototype scientific computing systems and software for current and future users of LSU’s supercomputing systems. Katz will lead the group’s efforts to develop new computing technologies, which will be critical to many areas of research, from coastal modeling and tsunami detection to terrain rendering and space-based applications.
“I view my work in computer science as being driven by the needs of application scientists. If I don’t have a scientist with a problem, I can’t do my job. So, the first thing I need toaccomplish is to get to know a large number of application scientists in various fields at LSU and across the state, and to understand their problems,” said Katz. As head of the SCSS group, Katz will reach out to the science and engineering communities on campus and across Louisiana to develop new computation tools to support their research. While working to expand existing partnerships and build new ones, Katz will also lead efforts to develop funding opportunities aimed at increasing the ranks of the SCSS group. With more computer scientists in the group, more research in Louisiana will be able to be supported by high-performance computing. In addition to his full-time appointment to CCT, Katz will also serve as an associate research professor in LSU’s Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering. In addition, he will continue to hold a part-time faculty appointment at JPL. “Dan Katz brings wide experience in grid computing and supercomputing to CCT. His group’s efforts will allow us to align with other supercomputing centers and acquire additional supercomputing resources for researchers across Louisiana and users of LONI. It will enable CCT to further develop one of the most comprehensive, advanced computing environments anywhere for applications from many disciplines,” said CCT Director Ed Seidel. While at JPL, Katz worked on a variety of high-performance computing projects in Earth and space sciences and engineering. One such project involved the creation of a computer modeling tool for a space antenna. Factors such as distance from the sun and the shade created by the spacecraft can cause physical changes in the shape of an antenna, therefore modifying its ability to receive and transmit. Using computer algorithms – a concoction of mathematical formulas and equations – Katz and the MODTool team were able to construct a tool that allowed complete modeling of the antenna in its operating environment in a short time. This allowed the design team, consisting of thermal, structural and electromagnetic engineers, to understand the changes that would occur in the antenna during the mission and to design an antenna that would operate correctly over all phases of the mission. In another role, he led the scientific applications portion of a project to develop a spaceborne parallel processing system that potentially would allow advanced data processing to take place on a spacecraft, rather than on Earth, with just a small number of results, rather than all the raw data, being transmitted back to Earth. Katz also worked as a computational scientist for Cray Research Inc., a designer and manufacturer of high-performance computers. At Cray, he worked with JPL scientists to develop algorithms and programs for computational electromagnetics and was also involved in signal processing and visualization. Katz received his Ph.D. from Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill., in 1994. He has received more than 15 technical awards from NASA, JPL and the Institute for Electrical and Electronics Engineers. He has also published nearly 100 journal articles; book chapters; and conference papers, presentations and posters on a variety of topics relating to computer science and high-performance computing. His work has received more than 250 citations by scientists and researchers worldwide. He has also served in a variety of roles in the Institute for Electrical and Electronics Engineers, including serving on the executive committees of the Technical Committee on Scalable Computing and the Technical Committee on Parallel Computing.
“I view my work in computer science as being driven by the needs of application scientists. If I don’t have a scientist with a problem, I can’t do my job. So, the first thing I need toaccomplish is to get to know a large number of application scientists in various fields at LSU and across the state, and to understand their problems,” said Katz. As head of the SCSS group, Katz will reach out to the science and engineering communities on campus and across Louisiana to develop new computation tools to support their research. While working to expand existing partnerships and build new ones, Katz will also lead efforts to develop funding opportunities aimed at increasing the ranks of the SCSS group. With more computer scientists in the group, more research in Louisiana will be able to be supported by high-performance computing. In addition to his full-time appointment to CCT, Katz will also serve as an associate research professor in LSU’s Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering. In addition, he will continue to hold a part-time faculty appointment at JPL. “Dan Katz brings wide experience in grid computing and supercomputing to CCT. His group’s efforts will allow us to align with other supercomputing centers and acquire additional supercomputing resources for researchers across Louisiana and users of LONI. It will enable CCT to further develop one of the most comprehensive, advanced computing environments anywhere for applications from many disciplines,” said CCT Director Ed Seidel. While at JPL, Katz worked on a variety of high-performance computing projects in Earth and space sciences and engineering. One such project involved the creation of a computer modeling tool for a space antenna. Factors such as distance from the sun and the shade created by the spacecraft can cause physical changes in the shape of an antenna, therefore modifying its ability to receive and transmit. Using computer algorithms – a concoction of mathematical formulas and equations – Katz and the MODTool team were able to construct a tool that allowed complete modeling of the antenna in its operating environment in a short time. This allowed the design team, consisting of thermal, structural and electromagnetic engineers, to understand the changes that would occur in the antenna during the mission and to design an antenna that would operate correctly over all phases of the mission. In another role, he led the scientific applications portion of a project to develop a spaceborne parallel processing system that potentially would allow advanced data processing to take place on a spacecraft, rather than on Earth, with just a small number of results, rather than all the raw data, being transmitted back to Earth. Katz also worked as a computational scientist for Cray Research Inc., a designer and manufacturer of high-performance computers. At Cray, he worked with JPL scientists to develop algorithms and programs for computational electromagnetics and was also involved in signal processing and visualization. Katz received his Ph.D. from Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill., in 1994. He has received more than 15 technical awards from NASA, JPL and the Institute for Electrical and Electronics Engineers. He has also published nearly 100 journal articles; book chapters; and conference papers, presentations and posters on a variety of topics relating to computer science and high-performance computing. His work has received more than 250 citations by scientists and researchers worldwide. He has also served in a variety of roles in the Institute for Electrical and Electronics Engineers, including serving on the executive committees of the Technical Committee on Scalable Computing and the Technical Committee on Parallel Computing.