\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tBYLINE: Anna Marie Tomczyk\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
Newswise \u2014 The Argonne Training Program on Extreme-Scale Computing\u00a0\u200b\u201cis as hands-on as it gets,\u201d said one attendee. The annual two-week program offers training on key skills, approaches and tools to carry out research on current and next-generation supercomputers.<\/p>\n
Lucas Timotheo Sanches, a postdoctoral researcher at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge, was about 12 years old when his father, an electrical engineer, started to teach him how to program computers. That experience and, later, some inspirational teachers led Sanches to become enamored with physics in high school.<\/p>\n
He then learned to combine his love of general relativity, computer science and high performance computing (HPC). He has since earned a Ph.D. in physics and continues to\u00a0\u200b\u201cplay around\u201d with computers.<\/p>\n
So, when he learned about the\u00a0Argonne Training Program on Extreme-Scale Computing (ATPESC),<\/a>\u00a0he applied.<\/p>\n \u201cFrom preparation to execution, everything was very well thought-out, unexpected eventualities handled quickly and efficiently, and everything felt like a well-oiled machine. And the overall atmosphere \u2026 talented students, great speakers, just an absolute intellectual paradise.\u201d \u2014 Lev Gorenstein, solutions architect at Globus and\u00a0ATPESC\u00a0presenter<\/p>\n He was delighted to find that the hands-on tutorials at\u00a0ATPESC\u00a0provided good, practical learning by example.<\/p>\n \u201cWe actually did things instead of just listening to the speakers,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Many early career scientists, such as Sanches, are eager to learn how to use the world\u2019s most powerful\u00a0supercomputers<\/a>. They also anticipate acquiring essential skills for their careers in the computational science and engineering worlds by participating in\u00a0ATPESC.<\/p>\n The U.S. Department of Energy\u2019s (DOE) Argonne National Laboratory plays a key leadership role in training the future\u00a0HPC\u00a0workforce. The annual\u00a0ATPESC\u00a0offers two weeks of intensive training on key skills, approaches and tools to carry out research on current and next-generation supercomputers. More than 900 attendees have participated in\u00a0ATPESC\u00a0since it was launched in 2013.<\/p>\n This year\u2019s program was held in late July and early August in St. Charles, Illinois.\u00a0ATPESC\u00a0offered curriculum that covers all aspects of supercomputing, including hardware, software, frameworks, visualization,\u00a0artificial intelligence<\/a> (<\/a>AI<\/a>)<\/a>,\u00a0machine learning<\/a>\u00a0and data-intensive computing.<\/p>\n ATPESC\u00a0covers a broad range of topics, and its purpose is, in fact, to fill in the knowledge gaps of the attendees, said Raymond Loy,\u00a0ATPESC\u00a0director and\u00a0Argonne Leadership Computing Facility (ALCF)<\/a>\u00a0lead for training, debuggers and math libraries. The\u00a0ALCF\u00a0is a\u00a0DOE\u00a0Office of Science user facility.<\/p>\n Each day brings both different material and a different subset of attendees who have a strong focus on that topic. That all depends on their backgrounds, their current research areas and their inherent curiosities about the topic.<\/p>\n \u201cGiven the current importance of\u00a0AI<\/a>, I\u2019m sure there will be some adjustments to increase coverage of that area in the future,\u201d said Loy.<\/p>\n This year\u2019s group of 74 attendees had many doctoral students, followed by postdoctoral and early career researchers, including several from industry.<\/p>\n \u201cAs\u00a0HPC\u00a0has come to the forefront of science, there has been a trend over time of applicants being qualified earlier in their careers in comparison to the early days of\u00a0ATPESC,\u201d said Loy.<\/p>\n Rui Fang, a graduate teaching assistant in the University of Pittsburgh\u2019s Mathematics Department, has worked on computational fluid dynamics and big data projects and sought to use high-performance resources to complete tasks. It wasn\u2019t until some friends nudged her to apply to\u00a0ATPESC\u00a0that she discovered the high-quality speakers and all the resources that were available to her.<\/p>\n \u201cI also enjoyed meeting people, the networking, that just happened to connect me with someone who felt that my research could be useful to them,\u201d she said.\u00a0\u200b\u201cThis has turned out to be one of the best summer programs I have ever attended, with people from different backgrounds who support each other.\u201d<\/p>\n Ilker Topcuoglu, a computational scientist and aerospace engineer at\u00a0DOE\u2019s National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Golden, Colorado, saw what his work colleagues learned from\u00a0ATPESC\u00a0and how they used it in their professions.<\/p>\n \u201cSome things about the program are not really obvious, but you learn which other pathways you can take to turn your project or idea into reality,\u201d said Topcuoglu.<\/p>\n Topcuoglu also learned by talking with others at the program about hardware and the more concealed elements of programming models. Each day brought new information.<\/p>\n \u201cThe program teaches you about all layers of scientific computing that you may not necessarily be aware of,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Jyotsna Rajaraman, a doctoral student at the University of Illinois Chicago and a research aide at Argonne, especially enjoyed hearing what her peers were learning about and what they were doing on large-scale machines.\u00a0ATPESC\u00a0also helped her to learn more efficiently.<\/p>\n \u201cThe debugging software and high-performance toolkit were especially helpful,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n Sagnik Singha\u2019s father was a physics major in college and had a great understanding of particle physics. When his father came home each day, he would teach his son about what he learned. It inspired the younger Singha in so many ways; he went on to earn a master\u2019s degree and doctorate in mechanical engineering at Texas Tech University. He is now a research associate at the university\u2019s High-Performance Computing Center.<\/p>\n He also aimed to continue his education outside of the university by taking his colleagues\u2019 advice to apply for\u00a0ATPESC.<\/p>\n \u201cThe depth and breadth of topics covered is admirable, and this is as hands-on as it gets,\u201d Sagnik said.<\/p>\n While dozens of experts from Argonne and other national laboratories in the field of\u00a0HPC\u00a0provided lectures, many offered tours of Argonne\u2019s facilities or hands-on demonstrations, Singha noted.<\/p>\n \u201cBut when you hear them speak, you learn how to push the boundaries because they were pushing the boundaries,\u201d he said.\u00a0\u200b\u201cYou also learn about the pitfalls and how they circumvented them. It was great to know what their interpretations were and what they think they see ahead.\u201d<\/p>\n Lev Gorenstein enjoyed being a first-time\u00a0ATPESC\u00a0speaker. He is a solutions architect at\u00a0Globus<\/a>, a research cyberinfrastructure service provided by the University of Chicago that offers secure and reliable file transfer, sharing and data management automation for researchers.<\/p>\n \u201cFrom preparation to execution, everything was very well thought-out, unexpected eventualities handled quickly and efficiently, and everything felt like a well-oiled machine. And the overall atmosphere \u2026 talented students, great speakers, just an absolute intellectual paradise,\u201d said Gorenstein.<\/p>\n John Holmen, an\u00a0HPC\u00a0engineer at\u00a0DOE\u2019s Oak Ridge National Laboratory\u2019s\u00a0Oak Ridge Leadership Computing Facility (OLCF)<\/a>, was himself an\u00a0ATPESC\u00a0attendee in 2015 and returned this year as a presenter. The\u00a0OLCF\u00a0is a\u00a0DOE\u00a0Office of Science user facility.<\/p>\n \u201cIt was a lot of fun to return as a presenter as I knew how foundational of an experience it can be for attendees and was able to share my excitement for them firsthand,\u201d said Holmen.\u00a0\u200b\u201cOverall, the presentation went well with lots of great and thought-provoking questions. The experience was quite rewarding as you could tell by the questions and general enthusiasm that participants were excited to learn.\u201d<\/p>\n The Argonne Leadership Computing Facility\u00a0provides supercomputing capabilities to the scientific and engineering community to advance fundamental discovery and understanding in a broad range of disciplines. Supported by the U.S. Department of Energy\u2019s (DOE\u2019s) Office of Science, Advanced Scientific Computing Research (ASCR) program, the\u00a0ALCF\u00a0is one of two\u00a0DOE\u00a0Leadership Computing Facilities in the nation dedicated to open science.<\/p>\n Argonne National Laboratory<\/a>\u00a0seeks solutions to pressing national problems in science and technology by conducting leading-edge basic and applied research in virtually every scientific discipline. Argonne is managed by\u00a0UChicago Argonne,\u00a0LLC<\/a>\u00a0for the\u00a0U.S. Department of Energy\u2019s Office of Science.<\/a><\/p>\n The U.S. Department of Energy\u2019s Office of Science\u00a0is the single largest supporter of basic research in the physical sciences in the United States and is working to address some of the most pressing challenges of our time. For more information, visit\u00a0https:\/\/\u200bener\u200bgy\u200b.gov\/\u200bs\u200bc\u200bience<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BYLINE: Anna Marie Tomczyk Newswise \u2014 The Argonne Training Program on Extreme-Scale Computing\u00a0\u200b\u201cis as hands-on as it gets,\u201d…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":22686,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[64,63,257,5440,105],"class_list":{"0":"post-182497","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-computing","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-computing","11":"tag-newswise","12":"tag-technology"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/182497","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=182497"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/182497\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22686"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=182497"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=182497"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=182497"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}