IEEE Computer Society Awards

Sidney Fernbach Award

Established in 1992 in memory of Sidney Fernbach, one of the pioneers in the development and application of high performance computers for the solution of large computational problems. A certificate and $2,000 are awarded for outstanding contributions in the application of high performance computers using innovative approaches.
 
Nomination Deadline: 1 July, 2010
 

 

Past recipients for Sidney Fernbach Award 

2009 Roberto Car
Michele Parrinello
For leadership in creating the modern theoretical and practical foundations for modeling the chemistry and physics of materials.  The software resulting from this work is one of the enabling tools for materials science modeling.
2008 William D. Gropp For outstanding contributions to the development of domain decomposition algorithms, scalable tools for the parallel numerical solution of PDEs, and the dominant HPC communications interface.
2007 David E. Keyes For outstanding contributions to the development of scalable numerical algorithms for the solution of nonlinear partial differential equations and exceptional leadership in high-performance computation.
2006 Edward Seidel For outstanding contributions to the development of software for HPC and Grid computing to enable the collaborative numerical investigation of complex problems in physics; in particular, modeling black hole collisions.
2005 John B. Bell For outstanding contributions to the development of numerical algorithms, mathematical, and computational tools and on the application of those methods to conduct leading-edge scientific investigations in combustion, fluid dynamics, and condensed matter.
2004 Marsha Berger For her many contributions, and enormous, influence to computational fluid dynamics including adaptive mesh refinement methods, Cartesian grid methods, and practical mathematical algorithms for solving significantly heretofore intractable problems.
2003 Jack J. Dongarra For outstanding and sustained contributions to the area of mathematical software, most particularly in the areas of communication and numerical libraries and performance benchmarks for high performance computing.
2002 Robert Harrison For developing a computational chemistry software package for applications development, by integrating fundamental algorithm research, novel ideas in computer science, and scalability, while delivering unprecedented modeling capabilities for chemistry applications.
2000 Stephen W. Attaway For pioneering advances in methods for modeling transient dynamics phenomena, enabling simulations of unprecedented scale and fidelity.
1999 Michael L. Norman For his leading edge research in applying parallel computing to challenge grand problems in astrophysics and cosmology.
1998 Phillip Collela For fundamental contributions to the development of software methodologies used to solve numerical partial differential equations, and their application to substantially expand our understanding of shock physics and other fluid dynamics problem.
1997 Charbel Farhat For outstanding contributions to the development of parallel numerical algorithms and parallel software packages that have helped the mechanical engineering world to embrace parallel processing technology.
1996 Gary A. Glatzmaier For innovative computational numerical methods to perform the first realistic computer simulations of the Earth's geodynamo and its resultant time-dependent magnetic field.
1995 Paul R. Woodward For your work in developing new algorithmic techniques in fluid dynamics, & your relentless & innovative pursuit of the hardware & software capabilities to carry out & visualize in real time the largest turbulence simulations.
1994 Charles S. Peskin For innovative application of mathematical modeling methods to important practical research questions in blood flow and the heart that has for more than 15 years pushed forward the leading edge of computational capability and helped to develop supercomputing technology as a valuable tool for improving the quality of human life.
1993 David H. Bailey For contributions to numerical computational science including innovative algorithms for FFT's, matrix multiply and multiple precision arithmetic on vector computer architecture.

2010 SIDNEY FERNBACH SUBCOMMITTEE CHAIR

Daniel A. Reed
Microsoft Research

Nominate

Car and Parrinello Named 2009 Fernbach Winners

LOS ALAMITOS, Calif., 15 October, 2009 — Roberto Car and Michele Parrinello, developers of the Car Parrinello Molecular Dynamics (CPMD) approach, are joint recipients of the 2009 Sidney Fernbach Award.

The pair laid the foundation for a modern approach to the chemistry and physics of materials. Their methodology was revolutionary, increasing the speed of simulations and propelling a major force in science. Such simulations are now used in physics, materials science, chemistry, semiconductors, surface science, catalysis, biological processes, mineralogy, and the new field of nano-sized structures, including industrial applications.

“The Fernbach Award recognizes the leadership of doctors Car and Parrinello in creating the modern theoretical and practical foundations for materials modeling,“ said IEEE Computer Society President Susan K. (Kathy) Land.

The approach to molecular dynamics calculations and density functional theory that they developed increased the speed of materials simulations and shifted models from analysis of small systems with the capacity to understand deeper and more complex processes.

CPMD has become the leading code in high-performance computing usage. The algorithm is a breakthrough in computer simulation that is at the root of other combined quantum/classical simulations, unifying two separate scientific communities; classical computer simulations and electronic structure calculations.

“Simply put, the Car-Parrinello molecular dynamics (CPMD) approach is a one of the key enablers of complex materials modeling and a workhorse of computational science,” said Fernbach Award Selection Committee Chair Daniel Reed.

Car and Parrinello are set to receive their award and deliver a plenary speech at 11:15 a.m. on Wednesday, 17 November at SC09 in Portland, Oregon.

Car is the Ralph W. Dornte 31 Professor in Chemistry at Princeton University. He is a Fellow of the Princeton Center for Theoretical Science (PCTS), and is affiliated with the Department of Physics, the Princeton Institute for the Science and Technology of Materials (PRISM), and the Program in Computational and Applied Mathematics (PACM).

He received a doctorate in physics from the Milan Institute of Technology. Before joining Princeton University in 1999, he worked at the University of Milan, the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, the IBM T.J. Watson Research Center, the International School for Advanced Studies in Trieste, and the University of Geneva.

He is a Fellow of the American Physical Society and of the Royal Society of Chemistry (UK), a recipient of an honorary doctorate, and was awarded the 2009 Dirac Medal of the International Centre for Theoretical Physics, the Raman Prize for Computational Physics from the American Physical Society in 1995, and the Hewlett-Packard Europhysics Prize for Outstanding Achievement in Solid State Physics from the European Physical Society in 1990. In 2008, he received a Humboldt Foundation research award for senior US scientists. 

His research has focused on understanding the physical and chemical properties of matter in condensed and molecular phases using computational methods based on first-principles microscopic quantum theory.

Parrinello has been professor of computational science at ETH Zurich since 2001 and for part of this time was also director of the Swiss Center for Scientific Computing (CSCS) in Manno, Switzerland. Prior to joining ETH, he was director at the Max Planck Institute for Solid State Research in Stuttgart, Germany; manager at the IBM Research Laboratory in Zurich; and professor at SISSA in Trieste, Italy.

Parrinello's scientific interests include the study of complex chemical reactions, hydrogen-bonded systems, catalysis, materials science and large-scale motion in proteins.

He holds five honorary doctorates and received the 2009 Dirac Medal of the International Centre for Theoretical Physics, the 2006 Somaini prize of the Italian Physical Society, the 2001 American Chemical Society Award in Theoretical Chemistry, the 1995 Raman prize, and the 1990 Europhysics prize. He is a member of the Royal Society (UK), the Accademia dei Lincei (Italy), the Max Planck Institute (Germany), the American Physical Society, the International Academy of Quantum Molecular Science, and the Berlin-Brandenburgische Akademie der Wissenschaften.

Established in 1992 in memory of high-performance computing pioneer Sidney Fernbach, the award recognizes innovative approaches to HPC applications. It acknowledges outstanding contributions in developing numerical algorithms and mathematical software that are important for computational modeling and simulation, or for using high-performance computers to solve large computational problems.

William Gropp, a developer of the message passing interface, was the 2008 winner of the Fernbach Award. Previous Sidney Fernbach Award recipients include Edward Seidel, John B. Bell, Marsha Berger, and Jack J. Dongarra.

About the Computer Society

With nearly 85,000 members, the IEEE Computer Society is the world’s leading organization of computing professionals. Founded in 1946, and the largest of the 39 societies of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), the Computer Society is dedicated to advancing the theory and application of computer and information-processing technology, and is known globally for its computing standards activities.

The Computer Society serves the information and career-development needs of today’s computing researchers and practitioners with technical journals, magazines, conferences, books, conference publications, and online courses. Its Certified Software Development Professional (CSDP) program for mid-career professionals and Certified Software Development Associate (CSDA) credential for recent college graduates confirm the skill and knowledge of those working in the field. The CS Digital Library (CSDL) is an excellent research tool, containing more than 250,000 articles from 1,600 conference proceedings and 26 CS periodicals going back to 1988.

SC09: Sidney Fernbach Award

Roberto Car and Michele Parrinello, developers of the Car Parrinello Molecular Dynamics (CPMD) approach, are joint recipients of the 2009 Sidney Fernbach Award.

The pair laid the foundation for a modern approach to the chemistry and physics of materials. Their methodology was revolutionary, increasing the speed of simulations and propelling a major force in science. Such simulations are now used in physics, materials science, chemistry, semiconductors, surface science, catalysis, biological processes, mineralogy, and the new field of nano-sized structures, including industrial applications.

 

 

SC 2009 Awards Session

18 November 2009 - Portland OR 



Rangachar Kasturi presenting the
2009 Sidney Fernbach Awards to
Roberto Car & Michele Parrinello

 



Michele Parrinello