About Dr. Sunita Chandrasekaran

Welcome to my research group! I am an Associate Professor at the Dept. of CIS, University of Delaware. My research groups interests include exploring programming models, migrating large scale scientific applications to next-generation platforms including the exascale systems, developing validation and verification testsuites for OpenMP and OpenACC and applying ML for life science.

I am also co-directing the AI Center of Excellence at UD.

For a list of publications and a full copy of my CV, pls click on the PDF below

Academic Profile

Name

Dr. Sunita Chandrasekaran

Education

  • PhD, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, 2012
  • (Title: Tools and Algorithms for High Level Algorithm Mapping to FPGA, 2012)

Research Interests

  • Programming Models, High Performance Computing, Exascale Computing
  • Machine Learning
  • Applying computer science to scientific domains including nuclear, bio, plasma physics

Professional Experience

  • Co-Director; AI Center of Excellence (AICoE), University of Delaware, Newark, USA. September 2022 -
  • Associate Professor; Department of Computer and Information Sciences (CIS), University of Delaware, Newark, USA. September 2021 –
  • Computational Scientist, Brookhaven National Laboratory, Upton, NY 11973-5000. September 2021 -
  • ACM Senior Member. Feb 2022 - present
  • IEEE Senior Member. Feb 2021 - present
  • David L. and Beverly J.C. Mills Career Development Chair; Department of Computer and Information Sciences (CIS), University of Delaware, Newark, USA. September 2020 – August 2024
  • Assistant Professor; Department of Computer and Information Sciences (CIS), University of Delaware, Newark, USA. September 2015 – Aug 2021
  • Board of Directors; OpenACC Organization. Spring 2020 – Present
  • User Representative Director; OpenACC Organization. June 2017 – Present
  • Postdoctoral Researcher; Department of Computer Science, University of Houston, Houston, TX, USA. December 2010 – August 2015

Awards and Honors

  • ACM Senior Member, 2022 – present
  • IEEE Senior Member, 2021 – present
  • 2022 SPEC HPG Achievement (Contributor) award
  • David L. and Beverly J.C. Mills Career Development Chair, University of Delaware, September 1, 2020-August 31, 2024
  • University of Delaware’s College of Engineering Excellence in Teaching Award, May 2020.
  • 2016 IEEE-CS TCHPC Award for Excellence for Early Career Researchers in High Performance Computing
  • SPEC HPG (Standard Performance Evaluation Corporation, High Performance Group) Technical Leadership Award, Jan 2016

Current Research Grants

  • DOE Exascale Computing Project (ECP) SOLLVE Project

    • Title: Scaling OpenMP With LLVm for Exascale Performance and Portability.
    • Duration: 10/19/21 – 09/30/2023
  • Leidos Biomedical Research/Frederick National Lab for Cancer Research, USA

    • Title: Enabling AMPL, CANDLE and other packages outside the NCI-DOE environment.
    • Duration: 06/01/2021 - 31/05/2022
  • Helmholtz Zentrum Dresden Rossendor (HZDR) Germany

    • Title: Exploring a performance portable software stack for PIConGPU to target a next-generation computing system, the FRONTIER Exascale System at ORNL (CAAR Project)
    • Duration: 10/01/2020 – 03/31/2022
  • NSF CCF and REU Supplement

    • Title: PAW: Novel Functionality in Programming Models to Productively Abstract Wavefront Parallel Pattern and NSF REU
    • Duration: 10/01/2018 – 09/30/2022
  • DOE Exascale Computing Project (ECP) SOLLVE

    • Title: Building a Validation and Verification Suite for OpenMP 4.5
    • Duration: 04/20/17 – 04/30/2023
  • National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR)

    • Title: Porting the MPS/University of Chicago Radiative MHD Models to GPUs Using OpenACC
    • Duration: 06/01/2018 – present
  • Nemours/Alfred I. duPont Hospital for Children

    • Title: Big Data Analytics and Machine Learning
    • Duration: 09/01/2018 – 04/30/2023
  • NVIDIA Research Donation

    • Title: OpenACC Validation and Verification Testsuite
    • Duration: 09/01/16 – present
  • NVIDIA Curriculum Development Grant (Gift)

    • Title: Creating teaching content for NVIDIA’s teaching kit
    • Duration: 05/01/2020 - 09/30/2020

Past Research Grants

  • NSF EAGER-1842623, co-PI with Rudolf Eigenmann and Robert Henschel (PI, Indiana University)

    • Title: Measuring Real World Application Performance on Next-Generation Computing Systems
    • Duration: 10/01/2018 – 03/31/2021
  • University of Delaware Research Foundation Grant (UDRF)

    • Title: Developing an accelerated Next Generation Sequence (NGS) alignment tool using GPUs for pairedend reads
    • Duration: 06/01/2020 - 05/31/2022

Invited Technical Talks

2022

  • Keynote at IPDRMWorkshop@SC22 Challenges and success stories migrating software and applications to Frontier, November 2022

  • ECP SOLLVE at the DOE booth SC22

  • The Race to Frontier, Stony Brook University, Sept 2022

  • Preparing Effective Grant Proposals – University resources, Early Career Program at SC22

  • The good, bad and the ugly with PIConGPU on Frontier, talk at AMD

  • Preparing the PIConGPU for the next-generation computing systems, BNL, Jan 2022

2021

  • Experience with porting and scaling codes on AMD GPUs, first PaCER Conference – P’con, Dec 2021

  • How Ready AreWe to Use the First Exascale Supercomputer, Frontier?, DOE ECP Booth, November 2021

  • Best practices for a productive (yet performance) software development, 2021 Europe ACM Summer School, Aug 2021

  • An HPC Journey – Porting a Solar Physics Code to Large Scale Systems, The Society of HPC Professionals, July 2021

  • Ten ways to build a productive (yet a performant) software, Supercomputing Frontiers Europe, July 2021

  • Programming Frontier, challenges and solutions, OLCF User Group meeting, June 2021

  • Present and the future of Accelerated Computing Programming Approaches, Panelist for NVIDIA GPU Technology Conference (GTC), March 2021

  • Exascale Simulations for the Next Generation of Plasma Accelerators with PIconGPU, SIAM CSE 2021, Feb 2021

  • Preparing to program the world’s fastest supercomputer, NSF-funded DARWIN system Symposium, UDEL, Feb 2021

2020

  • Evolution of a Project, Talk at the Students at the Supercomputing Conference (SC) program, Nov 2020

  • Hierarchical Parallelism for Exascale Computing (HiPar20 at Supercomputing Conference (SC), Panelist, Nov, 2020

  • Developing Software for today’s and tomorrow’s platform - fun or a nightmare, Invited talk by Prof. Michela Taufer at the UTK Seminar Series, UTK, Oct 2020

  • Research Activities at CRPL. Hierarchical Computations on Manycore Architecture Group at KAUST, Saudi Arabia, Aug 2020

  • Preparing Software Stack for the Next Generation Systems - An opportunity or a nightmare?, Thirteenth International Workshop on Parallel Programming Models and Systems Software for High-End Computing (P2S2) in conjunction with ICPP 2020, Aug 2020

  • Scientific Software Productivity - Case Studies, Challenges, Opportunities and Potential Solutions, 2020 Collegeville Workshop on Scientific Software: Panel on productivity definitions and challenges, July 2020

  • ECP SOLLVE, OpenMP Validation and Verification Effort, OpenPOWER Academia and Research Webinar, June 2020

  • GPUs for Science Day 2020, NERSC (National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center), Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in Berkeley, California, June 2020

  • Training and Best Practices to Develop Portable Yet Performant Code, Seattle, February, Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics, Parallel Processing (SIAM PP), Seattle, USA, Feb 2020 (In person)

2019

  • Running PIConGPU on Summit. CAAR: Preparing PIConGPU for Frontier at ORNL, 4th OpenPOWER Academic and Research Workshop, Denver, USA, Supercompuing Conference (SC), Nov 2019

  • OpenMP 4.5 Validation and Verification Testsuite, 4th OpenPOWER Academic and Research Workshop, November, Denver, USA, Supercompuing Conference (SC), Nov 2019

  • Applying directives to port MURaM code to heterogeneous systems, ASTRONUM, Paris, France, July, 2019

  • Development of a parallel algorithm for WGS alignment for rapid delivery of personalized genomics, PASC Minisymposium, Zurich, Switzerland, June 2019

  • Impact of parallel programming models on interdisciplinary scientific research, University of Basel, Basel, Switzerland, June 2019

  • OpenACC-Based GPU Acceleration of Chemical Shift Prediction, GPU Technology Conference (GTC), Invited featured speaker, CA, USA, Mar 2019

  • Porting MURaM (Max Planck University of Chicago Radiative MHD) to GPUs Using OpenACC, GPU Technology Conference (GTC), Invited speaker, CA, USA, March 2019

  • Acceleration of Prediction of Chemical Shift Structures, SIAM CSE, Spokane, USA, Feb, 2019

2018

  • Development of a parallel algorithm for whole genome alignment for rapid delivery of personalized genomics. NSF-funded International workshop Big Data and Extreme-Scale Computing (BDEC) Meeting, Indiana University, Bloomington, USA, Nov, 2018

  • 3P to Science using OpenACC: Performance, Productivity, and Portability. NVIDIA Booth at the SC showfloor. Dallas, Nov, SC18

  • Swiss Army Programming: Performance and Portability from Modern Tools. Dallas, Nov, SC18

  • Using the Parallel Programming Model, OpenACC, to do More Science and Less Programming, Bootcamp, Princeton University, NJ, USA , USA, Oct 2018

  • HPC-as-a-service to Domain Scientists, PASC Minisymposium, Basel, Switzerland, July, 2018

  • Opportunities and Challenges Migrating Scientific Code to Accelerators, National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), Boulder, USA, June, 2018

  • Achieving Performance While Preserving Portability for NGS Application, Society of Industrial Mathematics, Parallel Processing (SIAM PP), Tokyo, Japan, Mar 2018

  • Adapting Minisweep, a Proxy Application, on Heterogeneous Systems Using OpenACC Directives, Featured Speaker, Graphic Technology Conference (GTC), CA, USA, Mar 2018

  • Path forward for softwarization to tackle evolving hardware, SPIE, Orlando, USA, Apr 2018 2017

  • Parallelization and Acceleration of the Nuclear Reactor mini-app Minisweep on an OpenPOWER platform, 2nd OpenPOWER Academia Discussion Group Workshop, Supercomputing Conference (SC), Denver, USA, Nov 2017

  • Building Your Academic Professional Network. Grace Hopper Celebrations, Houston, USA, Oct, 2017

  • Using OpenACC for NGS Techniques to Create a Portable and Easy-to-Use Code Base. GPU Technology Conference (GTC). CA, USA, Mar 2017

  • Exploring on-Node Programming Models for Irregular Algorithms. SIAM CSE, Atlanta, USA, Feb, 2017

  • Programmer’s perspective on evolving hardware, Challenges and Success Stories, RWTH Aachen, Germany, Feb 2017

2016 and before

  • Hackathons, Best Practices in HPC Training,Workshop co-located at SC16, Salt Lake City, USA, November, 2016

  • OpenACC status and feedback, Birds of a Feather (BoF): GPU Technology Conference (GTC), San Jose, USA, May, 2016

  • Industry Standards for Programming Multicore Systems: Way to go!, Multicore Devcon Conference (MDC), California, Santa Clara, May, 2014

  • Exascale will soon be here, how prepared are we, Argonne National Lab, Chicago, USA, Apr, 2014

  • Simplifying Heterogeneous Multicore Programming Using Industry Standards. SIAM PP, Portland, Feb, 2014

  • Open Registry for Accelerated Computing, Many-Core and Reconfigurable Supercomputing Conference (MRSC), Bristol, UK, 2011

  • OpenACC API: User Experience, Vendor Reaction, Relevance, and Roadmap. Birds of Feather Speaker at SC16, Salt Lake City, Nov, 2016

Professional Activities - External (Recent and Selected)

For a full copy of my CV, pls click on the PDF below

  • Special Issue Editor for Future Generation Computing Systems (FGCS) 2021-2023

  • Associate Editor, Transactions of Parallel and Distributed Systems (TPDS) 2020 -

  • External Scientific Advisory Board

    • NCAR CISL Advisory Panel Member, 2022
    • Advisory Editorial Board - Software: Practice and Experience (SPE), 2022
    • Organizing Committee, SIAM Parallel Processing Conference 2022
    • European H2020 project: EPEEC (European joint Effort toward a Highly Productive Programming Environment for Heterogeneous Exascale Computing) Scientific-Industrial Advisory Board (SAIB), Barcelona Supercomputing Center, Spain, 2018-2020
  • Proposal Reviewer, US and International

    • DOE Presidential Early Career Awards for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE), May 2021
    • NSF Review Panel, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2022
    • Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada, Canada, Review Panel, 2017
    • DFG (German Research Foundation), Germany, Review Panel, 2017
  • Chair and Co-Chair - Conferences/Workshops/Symposiums/Scholarships

    • TechnicalProgramCo-chairIEEE/ACMInternationalSymposiumonCluster,CloudandGridComputing, (CCGrid), 2023
    • IEEE Cluster Student Travel Liaison chair, 2020-2022
    • Vice Chair, Interdisciplinary track, International Parallel & Distributed Processing Symposium (IPDPS), 2022