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Rachel McDowell

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

Technology

TechInt Develops New Solutions for Storage on Summit

The computational users running scientific codes on the Oak Ridge Leadership Computing Facility’s (OLCF’s) 200-petaflop IBM AC922 Summit supercomputer are generating more data than ever. To handle this data explosion, each Summit compute node is equipped with a solid-state storage device (SSD) that provides a fourfold speedup in the write…
Rachel McDowell
June 12, 2019
Science

Science at Exascale: Molecular Dynamics for Materials

Frontier is an exascale computer planned for delivery at the Oak Ridge Leadership Computing Facility in 2021. The system will support a wide range of scientific applications for advanced modeling and simulation, as well as high-performance data analytics and artificial intelligence. In the “Science at Exascale” Q&A series, researchers working…
Rachel McDowell
May 7, 2019
Science

Science at Exascale: 3D Printing

Frontier is an exascale computer planned for delivery at the Oak Ridge Leadership Computing Facility in 2021. The system will support a wide range of scientific applications for advanced modeling and simulation, as well as high-performance data analytics and artificial intelligence. In the “Science at Exascale” Q&A series, researchers working…
Rachel McDowell
May 7, 2019
Science

Science at Exascale: The Future of Fusion Modeling

Frontier is an exascale computer planned for delivery at the Oak Ridge Leadership Computing Facility in 2021. The system will support a wide range of scientific applications for advanced modeling and simulation, as well as high-performance data analytics and artificial intelligence. In the “Science at Exascale” Q&A series, researchers working…
Rachel McDowell
May 7, 2019
People

OLCF Scientist Talks Early Summit Results at APS Meeting

The American Physical Society's "Quarks to the Cosmos" meeting took place April 13–16 in Denver. Bronson Messer, a computational scientist at the Oak Ridge Leadership Computing Facility (OLCF), gave an invited talk at the American Physical Society’s (APS’s) “Quarks to the Cosmos” April meeting in Denver, detailing his current work…
Rachel McDowell
April 25, 2019
Science

Getting a Big Look at Tiny Particles

At the turn of the 20th century, scientists discovered that atoms were composed of smaller particles. They found that inside each atom, negatively charged electrons orbit a nucleus made of positively charged protons and neutral particles called neutrons. This discovery led to research into atomic nuclei and subatomic particles. An…
Rachel McDowell
April 3, 2019
People

Adamson Named New Group Leader for HPC Core Ops

Ryan Adamson has been appointed group leader of the OLCF's HPC Core Ops. Image Credit: Carlos Jones, ORNL Ryan Adamson, former senior high-performance computing (HPC) security engineer at the Oak Ridge Leadership Computing Facility (OLCF), has been appointed group leader of the OLCF’s HPC Core Operations (HPC Core Ops) Group.…
Rachel McDowell
April 3, 2019
People

NCCS Introduces HPC Core Operations Group

The NCCS created the HPC Core Ops Group this past fall. Pictured (left to right) are Scott Koch, Daniel Pelfrey, Ryan Adamson, Cory Stargel, Stefan Maerz, Kevin Bivens, Benny Sparks, Chip Newman, Matthew Gyurgyik, Jake Wynne, Noah Ginsburg, and Stefan Ceballos. Photo Credit: Carlos Jones, ORNL The National Center for Computational…
Rachel McDowell
January 17, 2019
ORNL cybersecurity engineers attended a Cyber Fire simulation event last month. Pictured here in ORNL’s Security Operations Center are attendees Stefan Maerz, Kevin Bivens, and Ryan Adamson. Photo Credit: Carlos Jones, ORNLPeople

ORNL Security Teams Prepare to Take the Heat with Cyber Fire

The high-performance computing (HPC) cybersecurity engineers at the US Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) typically face small cybersecurity incidents, so they don’t often get a chance to respond to bigger events. Cyber Fire is a program that offers multiple cybersecurity training events to staff members at…
Rachel McDowell
January 17, 2019
Science

Titan Takes Fluoride from Taps and Toothpaste to Batteries

In today’s technology landscape, companies are continually making improvements to electronic devices. Bigger screens, better cameras, and smarter systems are just some of the improvements these companies promise to consumers with each product upgrade. But one question remains: where are the long-lasting batteries? A collaboration of researchers recently made a…
Rachel McDowell
December 21, 2018
OLCF staff members attended EuroMP, OpenMPCon, IWOMP 2018, and more at the Barcelona Supercomputing Center.People

OLCF Staff Participate in Merged Conferences for New Perspectives

OLCF staff members attended EuroMP, OpenMPCon, IWOMP 2018, and more at the Barcelona Supercomputing Center. Image Credit: Rachel McDowell, ORNL Last month staff at the Oak Ridge Leadership Computing Facility (OLCF) attended a group of events colocated in Barcelona, Spain, at the Barcelona Supercomputing Center (BSC) to advance the development…
Rachel McDowell
November 5, 2018
Science

Microscopy Images Put Deep Learning Code to the Test

ORNL research scientists Steven Young (left) and Travis Johnston (middle) with ORNL data scientist Robert Patton (right). A team led by Patton is in the running for the 2018 ACM Gordon Bell Prize after it used the MENNDL code and the Summit supercomputer to create an artificial neural network that…
Rachel McDowell
October 23, 2018
Science

Titan Speeds Inquiry into Engine Alloys That Can Take the Heat

Simulations performed on the Cray XK7 Titan supercomputer at the Oak Ridge Leadership Computing Facility (OLCF) filled in a knowledge gap about high-temperature–capable alloys and inspired engineers to successfully develop a new cast aluminum–copper alloy that promises to withstand engine temperatures as high as 300°C—a temperature too extreme for current…
Rachel McDowell
September 17, 2018
People

Faces of Summit: Getting Acclimated

Ashleigh Barnes simulates metal–organic frameworks (MOFs) using the LSDalton chemistry code. Pictured left, a visualization of a magnesium-based MOF made up of magnesium ions (green) and organic linkers consisting of carbon (tan), oxygen (orange), and hydrogen (white) atoms. A carbon dioxide molecule (floating tan and orange molecule) has been adsorbed…
Rachel McDowell
September 17, 2018
By forcing airflow to veer off the trailer towards the wake behind it, the TopKit Aero System (red) reduces the base wake (blue) and increases the pressure on the truck rear, creating a significant reduction in overall vehicle drag. Image Credit: SmartTruckScience

SmartTruck Steps Up Simulations for Certification by Computation

Long-haul tractor trailers, often referred to as “18-wheelers,” transport everything from household goods to supermarket foodstuffs across the United States every year. According to the Bureau of Transportation Statistics, these trucks moved more than 10 billion tons of goods—70.6 percent of the nation’s total freight shipments—in 2016. But this transport doesn’t…
Rachel McDowell
August 29, 2018
People

Faces of Summit: Creating a Green Summit

Jim Rogers, computing and facilities director at the OLCF, has spent the last 30 years in the computing field. Over the course of his career, Rogers has taken part in a computing revolution, with systems increasing 1-million fold over the last three decades. The Faces of Summit series shares stories…
Rachel McDowell
August 29, 2018