IEEE CS and ACM Announce 2026 George Michael Memorial HPC Fellowship Recipients

LOS ALAMITOS, Calif., 9 September 2026 – The IEEE Computer Society (IEEE CS) and the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) announced today that Jie Ren of King Abdullah University of Science and Technology; Amit Samanta of University of Utah; and Xuan Wu of Oregon State University are the recipients of the 2026 ACM/IEEE CS George Michael Memorial High Performance Computing Fellowship.   

“The selection committee is honored to recognize this year’s honorees for their innovative work advancing the future of high-performance computing,” said Josep Torrellas, chair, George Michael Memorial HPC Fellowship Selection Committee. “Their research is addressing critical challenges across the field—from developing new approaches for GPU-accelerated computing and scientific data analysis to improving the performance, resource efficiency, and sustainability of large-scale computing systems. Together, their efforts are helping shape a more capable and sustainable future for HPC, and we look forward to the long-term impact of their work.”

This year’s honorees and specifics of their work include:

• Jie Ren, King Abdullah University of Science and Technology, Thuwal, Saudi Arabia 

Ren was named a 2026 Fellow for advancing GPU-accelerated linear algebra through algorithm-architecture co-design, enabling high-performance sparse solvers and finite element computations on modern supercomputers.

His research focuses on developing efficient numerical algorithms and software for GPU-accelerated high-performance computing systems, particularly in sparse linear algebra, discretization methods, and computational science. His earlier work also covered GPU-accelerated machine learning and computer vision systems. These efforts have laid the foundation for his future research in which he plans to explore the co-design of algorithms and modern heterogeneous architectures for large-scale scientific and computational problems.

• Amit Samanta, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, Utah, U.S.

Samanta was named a 2026 Fellow for advancing leadership-scale HPC infrastructure efficiency and sustainability through scheduling and resource-management systems that bridge on-premise supercomputers with cloud platforms for modern AI-driven scientific workflows.

Through his work, he develops control planes for large-scale computing systems that span increasingly heterogeneous resources, including HPC clusters, cloud capacity, serverless functions, and quantum accelerators. His research addresses the limitations of traditional scheduling approaches by developing resource management techniques that determine where and when workloads run and how resources are allocated across these diverse computing tiers.

Beyond improving performance and resource utilization, his research incorporates sustainability into computing resource management. He develops scheduling policies that treat electricity, carbon, and water usage as first-class considerations, accounting for factors such as time of day, grid conditions, and site. Together, these efforts move resource management beyond performance optimization toward an integrated approach for improving the efficiency and sustainability of large-scale computing systems.

• Xuan Wu, Oregon State University, Corvallis, Ore., U.S.

Wu was named the 2026 Fellow for pioneering error-controlled methods for compressing, retrieving, and analyzing scientific data that unlock faster scientific insight from extreme-scale simulations, which has been a central focus of her research on high-performance data compression and analysis.

Through her work, she develops error-controlled compression techniques that reduce storage and communication costs while preserving the information needed for scientific analysis. Her research has extended scientific compression to challenging settings such as unstructured data, helping address critical data-movement and storage bottlenecks in large-scale computing systems.

Beyond reducing data size, her research aims to make compressed data more useful throughout the scientific workflow. She has developed progressive retrieval techniques that avoid unnecessary data transfer by reconstructing data according to analysis requirements and explored analytical operations directly on compressed data. Together, these efforts move compression beyond storage reduction toward an integrated approach for improving the efficiency of data-intensive scientific computing.

In addition to this year’s three recipients, the George Michael Memorial HPC Fellowship Selection Committee also recognized an honorable-mention recipient: Yankai Jiang, a computer engineering doctoral candidate at Northeastern University, Boston, Mass., U.S. He earned this recognition for making HPC system design and resource management water and energy sustainable in an AI era.

Annually, the ACM/IEEE CS George Michael Memorial HPC Fellowship award is funded by IEEE CS and ACM, with the support of the SC Conference Series. As the recipients of this year’s award, Ren, Samanta, and Wu will each receive:

• An award of $5,000 to defray graduate education expenses
• Recognition on the ACM, IEEE CS, and ACM Special Interest Group on High Performance Computing (SIGHPC) websites
• A complimentary registration, plus travel expenses, to SC26, taking place 15-20 November in Chicago, Ill., U.S., where the fellowship will be formally presented at the SC Conference Awards Ceremony.

Nominations for the 2027 George Michael Memorial HPC Fellowship award are now open. Candidates must be enrolled in a full-time Ph.D. program at an accredited college or university; must meet the minimum scholastic requirements at their institution; have completed at least one year of study; and have at least one year remaining between the application deadline and their expected graduation. Nominations must be submitted by 1 May 2027. To submit, visit https://www.computer.org/volunteering/awards/michael.

About the ACM/IEEE CS George Michael Memorial High Performance Computing Fellowship

The ACM/IEEE CS George Michael Memorial HPC Fellowship is endowed in memory of George Michael, one of the founders of the SC Conference series. The fellowship honors exceptional Ph.D. students throughout the world whose research focus is on high-performance computing applications, networking, storage, or large-scale data analytics using the most powerful computers that are currently available. The Fellowship includes a $5,000 honorarium, online recognition, and travel expenses to attend the SC conference, where the fellowships are formally presented.

About the IEEE Computer Society

Engaging computer engineers, scientists, academia, and industry professionals from all areas of computing, the IEEE Computer Society sets the standard of excellence and champions global advancements to benefit humanity.

As the IEEE Computer Society celebrates its 80th anniversary in 2026, it continues to build on its rich legacy. Through conferences, publications, and programs that bring together computer science and engineering leaders at every stage of their careers, the IEEE Computer Society empowers, shapes, and guides the future of its 375,000+ community members, as well as the greater computing community, enabling new opportunities to better serve our world. Visit computer.org for more information.

About SC

SC, the International Conference for High Performance Computing, sponsored by ACM and IEEE CS, offers a complete technical education program and exhibition to showcase the many ways high performance computing, networking, storage, and analysis lead to advances in scientific discovery, research, education, and commerce. This premier international conference includes a globally attended technical program, workshops, tutorials, a world-class exhibit area, demonstrations, and opportunities for hands-on learning. SC26 takes place 15-20 November in Chicago, Ill., U.S. Registration is now open. To register or learn more, visit https://sc26.supercomputing.org/.