Skip to main content

Rachel McDowell

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

Science

Transforming Gas into Fuels with Better Alloys

Technological advances in oil and gas well stimulation over the past decade now allow for the production of natural gas from shale gas trapped in rock formations underground. With the sudden increase in the availability of shale gas, scientists have regained interest in carbon–hydrogen (C–H) activation, the process of breaking…
Rachel McDowell
August 7, 2018
Pictured here, daughters of ORNL staff members play the human neural network game, taking on roles as different kinds of neurons in a neural network.People

Introduce Your Daughter to AI Event Sees OLCF Participation

Last month staff members at the Oak Ridge Leadership Computing Facility (OLCF), a US Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Science User Facility located at DOE’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), facilitated a new artificial intelligence (AI)–focused event from the Women in Computing (WiC) networking group at ORNL: “Introduce Your Daughter to AI.”…
Rachel McDowell
July 17, 2018
OLCF Program Director Buddy Bland (left) with Center for Computational Sciences Director Jim Hack.People

Buddy Bland Presented with Secretary’s Appreciation Award

  OLCF Program Director Buddy Bland (left) with Center for Computational Sciences Director Jim Hack. Arthur “Buddy” Bland, program director of the Oak Ridge Leadership Computing Facility (OLCF) at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory, has received the Secretary’s Appreciation Award for his nearly four decades of achievements…
Rachel McDowell
June 26, 2018
People

OLCF Readies Users for Summit

Now that the Oak Ridge Leadership Computing Facility (OLCF) has launched its IBM AC922 Summit supercomputer, staff members in the OLCF’s User Assistance and Outreach (UAO) Group are planning robust training events intended to enhance user experiences on the new system. Unlike the OLCF’s current Cray XK7 Titan supercomputer, which…
Rachel McDowell
June 26, 2018
Matt Ezell works with the HPC systems team and other OLCF groups to identify bugs and technical issues with Summit’s software before the machine comes online.People

Faces of Summit: Leading a Systems Expedition

Matt Ezell works with the HPC systems team and other OLCF groups to identify bugs and technical issues with Summit’s software before the machine comes online. The Faces of Summit series shares stories of the people behind America’s top supercomputer for open science, the Oak Ridge Leadership Computing Facility’s Summit.…
Rachel McDowell
May 29, 2018
ADIOS and BDE researchers have incorporated a new methodology into the integrated tool that allows users to compress and stream data in real time. The new approach leverages software-defining network capabilities, allowing users to control network resources rather than manually requesting to connect.Technology

ADIOS and BigData Express Offer New Data Streaming Capabilities

ADIOS and BDE researchers have incorporated a new methodology into the integrated tool that allows users to compress and stream data in real time. The new approach leverages software-defining network capabilities, allowing users to control network resources rather than manually requesting to connect. Projects large enough to run on high-performance…
Rachel McDowell
May 29, 2018
The 2018 OLCF User Meeting was attended by 117 users and staff members. The annual event allows users to share their experiences with the OLCF’s resources and gives them an opportunity to learn about new tools and services.People

OLCF Hosts 14th Annual User Meeting amid Summit Buzz

The OLCF introduced plans for its future exascale system, Frontier, at the 2018 OLCF User Meeting. Last week the Oak Ridge Leadership Computing Facility (OLCF), a US Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Science User Facility located at DOE’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), held its annual user meeting—an event…
Rachel McDowell
May 29, 2018
An image of a deuteron, the bound state of a proton and a neutronScience

Another First for Quantum

The beginnings of quantum computing bring about many firsts. In 2010 a team led by B. P. Lanyon simulated a hydrogen molecule, H2, on a quantum system for the first time. Last fall research scientists at IBM performed the first quantum calculations of molecules beyond hydrogen and helium. Now a…
Rachel McDowell
May 23, 2018
ORNL team reaches into atoms’ depths to look at particle interactions driving nuclear stabilityScience

Nuclear Physicists Wield HPC to Uncover Magic Isotopes

Where do elements come from? How does the strong force bind subatomic particles into nuclei? What can scientists understand from nuclei with unusual proton–neutron ratios? Nuclear physicists at the US Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) are seeking answers to questions like these. One element is of…
Rachel McDowell
May 1, 2018
Sarp Oral enjoys challenges of designing a large-scale file systemPeople

Faces of Summit: Tackling Storage

Sarp Oral, the storage team lead for the TechInt group at the OLCF, works with other storage team members to deliver a file system that meets the requirements for reliability, capacity, and performance. The Faces of Summit series shares stories of the people behind America’s top supercomputer for open science,…
Rachel McDowell
May 1, 2018
Novel deep learning approach helps to create more accurate representations of pathology reportsPeople

Faces of Summit: Serving up Software

Mark Berrill applies his knowledge in engineering and computing to manage software projects related to Summit, the OLCF's next leadership-class supercomputer. The Faces of Summit series shares stories of the people behind America’s top supercomputer for open science, the Oak Ridge Leadership Computing Facility’s Summit. The IBM AC922 machine launched…
Rachel McDowell
March 26, 2018
Science

A Novel Method for Comparing Plant Genes

A map of gene expression correlation triangles, with positive correlations (blue edges) between Kalanchoë genes (dark green nodes) and pineapple genes (yellow nodes) and negative correlations (red edges) between Kalanchoë or pineapple genes and Arabidopsis genes (light green nodes). During normal photosynthesis, plants capture sunlight and carry out respiration during…
Rachel McDowell
February 27, 2018
Technology

Optimizing Miniapps for Better Portability

Minisweep performs a “sweep” computation across a grid (pictured)—representative of a 3D volume in space—to calculate the positions, energies, and flows of neutrons in a nuclear reactor. The yellow cube marks the beginning location of the sweep. The green cubes are dependent upon information from the yellow cube, the blue…
Rachel McDowell
January 17, 2018
People

Faces of Summit: Putting the System to the Test

Verónica Vergara Larrea coordinates and organizes the test development and benchmarking for the OLCF’s next big supercomputer, Summit, as part of the system’s acceptance process. The Faces of Summit series shares stories of the people behind America’s top supercomputer for open science, the Oak Ridge Leadership Computing Facility’s Summit. The…
Rachel McDowell
January 17, 2018
Science

New Boeing Method Accelerates Turbulence Modeling Uncertainty Analysis

A simulation of a physical wind tunnel airplane model (the NASA Common Research Model), widely used for CFD benchmarking and analysis. Boeing researchers recently used OLCF resources to perform simulations that would aid them in identifying and reducing uncertainty in a computational turbulence model called the Spalart–Allmaras model. Quantifying the…
Rachel McDowell
December 20, 2017
People

Teams Gear up for Summit at Fourth Annual GPU Hackathon

At the Oak Ridge Leadership Computing Facility’s (OLCF’s) fourth annual GPU Hackathon, event programmers again successfully adapted their applications for GPU architectures. The 5-day event at the Hilton in Knoxville, Tennessee, took place the week of October 9 during the installation of the OLCF’s next flagship supercomputer, Summit. The event drew…
Rachel McDowell
November 28, 2017
Science

Decades-Long Physics Mystery Elucidated with Titan

The same fusion reactions that power the sun also occur inside a tokamak, a device that uses magnetic fields to confine and control plasmas of 100-plus million degrees. Under extreme temperatures and pressure, hydrogen atoms can fuse together, creating new helium atoms and simultaneously releasing energy. Fusion could be a…
Rachel McDowell
October 17, 2017