Current Members
Dana Brunson
Executive Director for Research Engagement
Internet2
Brunson leads Internet2’s research engagement efforts, is PI of the Research Computing and Data (RCD) Nexus, an NSFCyberinfrastructure Center of Excellence Pilot and serves in leadership roles in the Campus Research Computing Consortium (CaRCC). Through August 2022, she was also co-manager of the XSEDE Campus Engagement Program, including leading the Campus Champions.
Roy Chartier
Director of Architecture
Digital Research Alliance of Canada
A seasoned technology professional, Roy has held roles in government, industry, startups and non-profit organizations delivering high-value workloads at scale, including HPC, HTC and HPDA.
In 2021, Roy joined the Digital Research Alliance of Canada as Director of Architecture after spending a year at Laboratories Canada as a senior advisor. In addition, he founded an HPC services company and a charity called HPC for Humanity (formerly The Supercomputer for Cancer Research, aka “Cancer Computer”) founded in 2015 that has grown to a compute ecosystem with installations at six universities and three colocation facilities in Canada and the United States. HPC for Humanity currently supports dozens of projects in cancer, neuroscience and other humanitarian research through generous hardware donations from governments and corporations and the hard work of a dedicated and talented group of volunteers.
Roy has completed Executive Programs at MIT Computer Science & Artificial Intelligence Laboratory and the Sloan School of Management. He also has a degree in Philosophy from Carleton University.
Yanni Chen
Postdoctoral Researcher
University of Notre Dame
Yanni Chen is an evolutionary biologist focusing on using evolutionary aspects to understand the ecological and evolutionary interaction of plants. Chen primarily uses HPC to perform bioinformatic analysis and evolutionary simulation.
Jing Gao
Assistant Professor of Geospatial Data Science
University of Delaware
Gao comes to ACCESS with a wealth of experience in cyberinfrastructure. She’s a transdisciplinary scholar integrating data science, social sustainability and climate change. Gao is a CAREER awardee co-supported by three NSF directorates (SBE, CISE, ENG) and a co-PI of an NSF HDR Data Science Corps project that provides equitable interdisciplinary training in data science to diverse students.
William Lai
Assistant Research Professor
Cornell University
William Lai’s research is directed towards understanding the fundamental mechanisms of gene regulation. His research program combines biochemical and high-throughput AI/ML bioinformatic approaches to integrating multiple types of high-resolution genomic data.
Bronson Messer
Director of Science
Oak Ridge Leadership Computing Facility,
Oak Ridge National Laboratory
Bronson Messer is a Distinguished Scientist and Director of Science at the Oak Ridge Leadership Computing Facility (OLCF) at ORNL. He is also a Joint Faculty Professor in the Department of Physics & Astronomy at the University of Tennessee. His primary research interests are related to the explosion mechanisms and phenomenology of supernovae. He has run on, managed, helped to build and consulted on several generations of supercomputers over the past few decades, including NSF machines like Kraken, Blue Waters, Stampede and Blue Horizon.
Tabitha Samuel
Deputy Director and HPC Operations Group Leader
National Institute for Computational Sciences,
University of Tennessee
Samuel has been an active member of the national cyberinfrastructure community for more than 13 years. Her experience ranges from leadership roles in XSEDE to being an active member of CASC and PEARC.
Olga Scrivner
Assistant Professor in Computer Science and Software Engineer
Rose-Hulman Institute for Science and Technology
and
President
Scrivner Solutions Inc (AI in Healthcare)
Scrivner worked as a Research Scientist for the Indiana University Cyberinfrastructure for Network Science Center (CNS). She is currently involved in research on AI and NLP biases and regulations for Large Language Models and FDA-approved AI algorithms. She’s also involved in several initiatives to bring diversity in computing and leadership as a Women Techmakers Ambassador by Google and a program committee member for ACE Women Network in Indiana.
Eva Siegmann
Lead Research Scientist
Institute for Advanced Computational Science Research & Innovation
Siegmann is the lead research scientist of the Ookami project, an NSF-funded computing technology testbed. She is also serving as Chair of the ACCESS Resource Provider Forum, Associate Director of the Arm HPC User Group (AHUG) and Deputy Director of the Cray User Group–PEAD special interest group. Her research interests include applied mathematics, numeric modeling and high-performance computing.
Robert Sinkovits
Director of Education and Training
San Diego Supercomputer Center
Sinkovits has diverse experience that includes deep technical engagements and leadership positions. He was the Co-PI for the XSEDE Extended Collaborative Support Services program, which engaged with researchers on focused projects to accelerate their computational research and is currently PI or Co-PI on several NSF OAC cybertraining grants.
Jorge Vinals
Professor of Physics
University of Minnesota
Research in nonequilibrium physics, including the role of topological defects and their motion in Soft Matter and Materials Science. Former Director of CLUMEQ (Quebec HPC node in Compute Canada at McGill U.), the Minnesota Supercomputing Institute and President of the Great Lakes Consortium for Petascale Computing (UIUC).
Jason Williams
Assistant Director, Diversity and Research Readiness DNA Learning Center
Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
Jason develops national biology education programs and has trained thousands of students, researchers and educators in bioinformatics, data science and molecular biology. This has included national outreach for cyberinfrastructure platforms and advisory roles to bioinformatics and education projects and initiatives in the US, UK, Europe and Australia.
Past Members
Ruth Marinshaw
ACCESS RESOURCE PROVIDERS FORUM CHAIR
Chief Technical Officer
Stanford Research Computing Center