Rafael Ferreira da Silva, a senior research scientist in the Data Lifecycle and Scalable Workflows group at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), has been elevated to the grade of senior member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE). Senior members must have at least 10 years of professional experience in an IEEE‑designated field and 5 years of significant performance in their field, which can be demonstrated through effective publications, task leadership, or project management.
IEEE is a technical professional organization whose mission is to “foster technological innovation and excellence for the benefit of humanity.” With more than 409,000 members worldwide, the organization is a leader in publications, conferences and events, and international standards for information technology and telecommunications. Senior member is the highest membership level in IEEE, a distinction only awarded to approximately 10% of members, and the position comes with unique opportunities, such as eligibility for volunteer leadership positions.
At ORNL, Ferreira da Silva is part of a team of researchers developing scientific workflow applications and tools for supercomputers at the Oak Ridge Leadership Computing Facility. Bringing his experience as a software developer and engineer, research lead, and professor, he joined ORNL in 2021 and is leading efforts to scale and deploy scientific workflows for the newly debuted HPE Cray EX system, Frontier—the nation’s first and the world’s fastest exascale computer.
“The elevation to senior IEEE member will allow me to continue to support researchers and to pursue community efforts in the distributed computing and workflows field by holding executive IEEE volunteer positions,” says Ferreira da Silva.