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Rachel McDowell

Rachel McDowell is a science writer for the Oak Ridge Leadership Computing Facility.

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OLCF’s Advanced Technologies Section Hosts Seminar Series

The Oak Ridge Leadership Computing Facility’s (OLCF’s) Advanced Technologies Section (ATS) is hosting a series of seminars on topics relevant to its section groups and beyond. On the second and fourth Mondays of each month, speakers from various research disciplines across the US Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) Oak Ridge National Laboratory…
Rachel McDowell
August 31, 2021
Science

Shape-Based Model Sheds Light on Simplified Protein Binding

Can something as simple as shape fully determine whether or not proteins will bind together? Scientists are commissioning supercomputers to find out. A team led by Sharon Glotzer, distinguished professor and department chair of chemical engineering at the University of Michigan (UM), used the 200-petaflop Summit supercomputer at the US…
Rachel McDowell
August 9, 2021
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Pioneering Frontier: Staying on Track

The “Pioneering Frontier” series features stories profiling the many talented ORNL employees behind the construction and operation of the OLCF’s incoming exascale supercomputer, Frontier. The HPE Cray system is scheduled for delivery in 2021, with full user operations in 2022. Denise Hoomes leads the project controls specialists working on the…
Rachel McDowell
April 22, 2021
Science

Computer Simulations Shed Light on Nanomaterial Structures

2D nanomaterials, with a thickness of a single layer of atoms, have unique electrical and optical properties that make them good candidates for use in electronics and optical sensors. An increasing range of these ultrathin materials can now be synthesized, and the ways in which they emit and absorb light…
Rachel McDowell
April 22, 2021
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Arthur “Buddy” Bland, World-Leading Supercomputing Project Director, Retires after 40 Years Dedicated to HPC

“No risk, no reward.” It’s a familiar sentiment in business and entrepreneurial ventures. Risk drives innovation and propels organizations to new heights. It’s certainly familiar to Arthur “Buddy” Bland, former project director at the Oak Ridge Leadership Computing Facility (OLCF) who retired this month after 40 years of faithful service…
Rachel McDowell
February 26, 2021
Science

A New Approach for Bigger and Better Earthquake Modeling

This story was originally written by Aaron Dubrow at the Texas Advanced Computer Center and adapted by Rachel McDowell for the Oak Ridge Leadership Computing Facility. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AdGctQsjKpU A randomly selected 3,000-year segment of the physics-based simulated catalog of earthquakes in California, created on the Texas Advanced Computing Center's Frontera supercomputer. Video Credit:…
Rachel McDowell
January 29, 2021
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Former National Center for Computational Sciences Director James Hack Retires from 40-Year Computing Career

Delivering scientific breakthroughs on the world’s most powerful supercomputers requires leaders with the experience and knowledge of how to run the high-performance computing (HPC) centers that house them. That’s precisely why James Hack was hired in 2007—to direct the National Center for Computational Sciences (NCCS) at the US Department of…
Rachel McDowell
January 12, 2021
Science

University of Delaware Team Tightens up Code for Exascale Computing on Frontier

This article was originally written by Tracey Bryant, Senior Director for Research Communications at the University of Delaware. University of Delaware professor Sunita Chandrasekaran is leading an international team designing an application for the Frontier exascale supercomputer, now being built at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. Image Credit: Sunita Chandrasekaran, University of Delaware…
Rachel McDowell
January 12, 2021
Technology

Jupyter Has Landed at the OLCF

To analyze and process scientific data, researchers often employ Jupyter notebooks, interactive web documents that host snippets of code written in statistical programming languages such as Python (or R or Julia). Domain scientists, mathematicians, data scientists, and educators use the Jupyter tool suite to analyze and visualize data, iteratively prototype codes,…
Rachel McDowell
December 22, 2020
Technology

OLCF Reaches New Heights with Andes Cluster

Staff members at the Oak Ridge Leadership Computing Facility (OLCF) have replaced the center’s Rhea data analysis cluster with a brand-new AMD-based system dubbed Andes. For 6 faithful years, Rhea afforded OLCF users the opportunity to perform data analysis and visualizations of simulations performed on the OLCF’s former Cray XK7…
Rachel McDowell
December 11, 2020