Microsoft Research eScience Workshop 2005
Speaker Biographies
Patrick Anquetil
The BioInstrumentation Laboratory in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at
MIT is dedicated to the development of novel modern medical instrumentation
requiring the combination of many traditional disciplines including biology,
optics, mechanics, mathematics, electronics and chemistry. It is uniquely placed
to bring together these areas of research with its broad array of students and
post doctoral research scientists from Mechanical Engineering, Electrical
Engineering, Physics, Chemistry, Materials Science and Biology. In addition, we
have extensive laboratory facilities including mechanical, electrical and
optical work shops, a BL2 biology work area, a chemistry laboratory and a clean
room complete with an electron microscope. These facilities allow our
researchers to move quickly from a medical device concept to a prototype and
rapidly iterate their designs.
Karan Bhatia
Dr. Bhatia is the group leader for the Grid Development group at the San Diego
Supercomputer Center (SDSC). The group is funded by various grid projects to
build grid middleware components for existing and emerging cyberinfrastructure
projects. The group is developing a wide variety of software, including
GEMSTONE, INCA, and GEON Systems components among others. Prior to joining SDSC,
Dr. Bhatia was a senior engineer at Entropia, a enterprise distributed computing
infrastructure company. Dr. Bhatia received a PhD in Computer Science from UCSD
specializing in distributed computing and fault tolerance.
Gully Burns
Gully studied physics as an undergraduate at Imperial College in London, when,
half-way through a early-morning Friday lecture on detectors for sub-atomic
particles, he had an epiphany that he wanted to study how the brain works. He
started a Ph.D. at Oxford, only to find that the theoretical foundations of
neuroscience were not the stringent, mathematically-defined coda he was used to.
Since then, Gully has striven to formalize the theoretical basis of his subject
by building practical systems that might be used in laboratories. Since
completing his Ph.D., he has worked as a postdoc and then an assistant research
professor in the neuroanatomy laboratory of Professor Larry Swanson at USC.
Shirley Cohen
Cohen was a Senior Software Developer at the Texas Advanced Computing Center,
but has just recently started graduate school at the University of Pennsylvania.
Milton Corn, M.D.
Dr. Milton Corn is Associate Director of the National Library of Medicine (NLM),
and Director of the Library’s grant programs. He is a graduate of Yale College
and Yale Medical School. Post-graduate training includes internal medicine at
Harvard’s Peter Bent Brigham Hospital, and hematology at Johns Hopkins. Most of
his academic career was spent at Georgetown University School of Medicine, where
he held the appointment of Professor of Medicine. In 1984-85 he was Medical
Director of Georgetown University Hospital. He served as Dean of Georgetown’s
Medical School 1985-89. He joined N.I.H. in 1990, and administers a broad
spectrum of grant programs in the domain of biomedical computing relevant for
basic research, health care delivery and education. He is board-certified in
internal medicine and hematology, and is a fellow of the American College of
Physicians and of the American College of Medical Informatics.
Simon Cox
He is a Professor of Computational Methods in the Computational Engineering
Design Research Group (CED) Group within the School of Engineering Sciences
(SES). The School was awarded grade 5* in the 2001 national assessment of
research in UK universities. The primary research interests of the group are in
the three broad themed areas of optimisation and design search, applied
computational modelling, and computational methods. This spans design
optimisation, solid material modelling, computational electromagnetics,
repetitive structures, contact mechanics, structural dynamics and computational
methods. The CED aims to be a centre of excellence for multi-disciplinary
engineering simulation and design which combines together a range of analytical,
computational, and experimental techniques. Our strength lies in this
sophisticated mix of engineering methods coupled to industrial applications: a
particular focus for our activities over the next few years will be the
development of grid-based problem-solving services for use by academia and
industry.
Jeff Dozier
Jeff Dozier’s research and teaching interests are in the fields of snow
hydrology, Earth system science, remote sensing, and information systems. He has
pioneered interdisciplinary studies in two areas: one involves the hydrology,
hydrochemistry, and remote sensing of mountainous drainage basins; the other is
in the integration of environmental science and computer science and technology.
In addition, he has played a role in development of the educational and
scientific infrastructure. He founded UC Santa Barbara’s Donald Bren School of
Environmental Science & Management and served as its first Dean for six years.
He was the Senior Project Scientist for NASA’s Earth Observing System in its
formative stages when the configuration for the system was established. After
receiving his PhD from the University of Michigan in 1973, he has been a faculty
member at UCSB since 1974. He is a Fellow of the American Geophysical Union, the
American Association for the Advancement of Science, and the UK’s National
Institute for Environmental eScience. He is also an Honorary Professor of the
Chinese Academy of Sciences and a recipient of the NASA Public Service Medal.
Dennis Gannon
Dennis Gannon is a professor in the department of Computer Science at Indiana
University which he chaired from 1997 to 2004. His previous positions include
the department of Computer Science at Purdue University. He was also a senior
visiting research scientist at the Center for Supercomputer Research and
Development, University of Illinois. He was a partner in the NSF Computational
Cosmology Grand Challenge project. He is a founding member of the DOE Common
Component Architecture software group and the NCSA Alliance. From 1998-2000 he
worked on the NASA Information Power Grid. He is on the steering committee for
the Global Grid Forum. Gannon is also the Science Directory for the Indiana
Pervasive Technologies Labs.
Marc Garbey
Founder of a new lab in Modeling and Computational Science in the Department of
Computer Science at University of Houston in January 2002: the main goal is to
develop interdisciplinary projects between applied mathematicians and computer
scientists with applications in biology, medicine and environmental sciences.
Shahram Ghandeharizadeh
Shahram Ghandeharizadeh received his Ph.D. degree in Computer Science from the
University of Wisconsin, Madison, in 1990. Since then, he has been on the
faculty at the University of Southern California. Shahram is a recipient of the
National Science Foundation Young Investigator’s award for his research on
physical design of parallel database systems. His primary research interest is
the field of neuroinformatics, emphasizing the use of Web Services to facilitate
publication, use, and integration of autonomous data sources.
Jonathan Goodall
Jonathan Goodall is an Assistant Professor of the Practice of Geospatial
Analysis at Duke University in the Nicholas School of the Environment and Earth
Sciences. His primary research and teaching interests are in geographic
information systems applied to water resources science and engineering. He
completed his Ph.D. in civil engineering from the University of Texas at Austin
in 2005.
Victoria Hilford
Dr. Victoria Hilford received her Masters in Electrical Engineering, her Masters
and Ph.D. in Computer Science. She has worked in the industry for 10 years
before she started teaching at University of Houston. Currently, Dr. Victoria
Hilford is working on the Biomedical Data Grid project that provides database
support to several projects in the Biomedical field.
Marty A. Humphrey
Marty A. Humphrey received the Bachelor of Science degree in electrical and
computer engineering in 1986 and Master of Science degree in electrical and
computer engineering in 1988 from Clarkson University, Potsdam, NY, and a PhD in
computer science from the University of Massachusetts in 1996. From 1998 to the
present, he has been with the Department of Computer Science at the University
of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA where he was first a Research Assistant
Professor and is currently (2002-) an Assistant Professor. His areas of research
include many aspects of Grid Computing, including security, programming models,
performance, Grid testing, and Grid usability. He is active in the Global Grid
Forum, where he recently completed a term on the GGF Steering Committee.
Julian Humphries
Humphries is a Research Scientist in the Geology Department at the University of
Texas and Project Manger for the Digital Library of Vertebrate Morphology (or
Digimorph Project), an NSF funded Digital Library Project. His background is in
biology and biological informatics.
Keyuan Jiang
Dr. Keyuan Jiang received his Ph.D. in Biomedical Engineering from Vanderbilt
University, Nashville, Tennessee, and is Assistant Professor of Computer
Information Systems and Information Technology at Purdue University Calumet,
Hammond, Indiana. Dr. Jiang has conducted a number of research projects in the
area of computer applications in biomedicine, ranging from the knowledge-based
system for synthetic gene design, bedside graphical nursing charting system, to
the communication log system for clinical studies. His current interests are
focused on Semantic Web in life sciences and bioinformatics Web services. Dr.
Jiang is a member of IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society, and is
serving on the editorial board of IEEE Transactions on Information Technology in
Biomedicine. As a faculty member at Purdue University Calumet, he has taught
courses of software development and bioinformatics. Prior to his current
position, Dr. Jiang was a Technical Advisor at two private companies in
delivering e-business solutions using Microsoft technologies.
Sun Kim
Sun Kim is currently Associate Director of Bioinformatics Program , Assistant
Professor in School of Informatics, Associate Faculty at the Center for Genomics
and Bioinformatics at Indiana University - Bloomington. Prior to IU, he worked
at DuPont Central Research as Senior Computer Scientist from 1998 to 2001, and
at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign from 1997 to 1998 as Director
of Bioinformatics and Postdoctoral Fellow at the Biotechnology Center and a
Visiting Assistant Professor of Animal Sciences .Sun Kim received B.S. and M.S.
and Ph.D. in Computer Science from Seoul National University, Korea Advanced
Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) , and the University of Iowa
respectively. Sun Kim is a recipient of Outstanding Junior Faculty Award at
Indiana University 2004-2005, NSF CAREER Award DBI-0237901 from 2003 to 2008,
and Achievement Award at DuPont Central Research in 2000.
David Lifka
David Lifka is the Director of High Performance Systems and Innovative computing
for Computing and Information Sciences at Cornell University. His duties include
management of the technical staff providing systems administration, consulting
and systems research and development for CIS, Computer Science and the Cornell
Theory Center. Lifka is an expert in Windows based high performance computing
and led CTC’s technical move from proprietary UNIX to Windows-based industry
standard high performance computing, working with strategic partners, including
Microsoft, Intel, Dell, Unisys, Giganet, and ADIC. His areas of expertise
include parallel job scheduling and resource management systems, UNIX-to-Windows
migration, and HPC services. Lifka’s vision is that HPC must become pervasive
and as easy to use out- of-the-box as a personal computer to make it a viable
tool for more than those at academic institutions and research laboratories.
Lifka is actively involved in eScience and Data Intensive Computing efforts at
Cornell. Understanding the manageability and maintainability of petabyte size
data repositories as well as the use of SQL Server and Web services for
developing seamless HPC interfaces are of primary interest to Lifka. Lifka came
to Cornell University from Argonne National Laboratory in 1995. Lifka has a
Ph.D. in Computer Science from the Illinois Institute of Technology and serves
on a number of corporate and IT advisory boards.
Krishna P.C. Madhavan
Dr. Krishna P.C. Madhavan is a Research Scientist for Teaching and Learning
Applications with the Rosen Center for Advanced Computing and the NSF-funded
Envision Center for Data Perceptualization Information Technology at Purdue. Dr.
Madhavan is also the Educational Technology Director for the NSF-funded Network
for Computational Nanotechnology (NCN). He serves as the Curriculum Director for
the Supercomputing 2005 Education Program and is also the Chair for the
Supercomputing 2006 Education Program. Dr. Madhavan also spearheads the
Zecosystem project at Purdue University.
Beth Plale
Beth Plale is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Computer Science at
Indiana University. Prior to joining Indiana University, Professor Plale held a
Postdoc in the Center for Experimental Research and Computer Systems at Georgia
Tech. Plale’s Ph.D. is in computer science from State University of New York
Binghamton. She earned a M.S. in computer science from Temple University in
1991, an MBA from University of LaVerne in 1986, and a B.Sc. in computer science
from University of Southern Mississippi in 1984. Professor Plale’s interest in
experimental systems was heavily influenced by time spent as a software engineer
in the defense industry in the 80’s. Her research interests include data-driven
applications, parallel and distributed computing, data management, and grid
computing.
Paul Roe
Paul Roe is an associate professor at QUT where he leads the programming
language and system research group. His research and teaching interests lie in
the areas of distributed computing, particularly grid computing and web
services, and programming languages. Paul has published over 60 papers and has
received numerous grants; much of his research is done in conjunction with
industry. For the past five years he has been using .NET in both his teaching
and research.
Uma Shama
Dr. Uma Shama is a professor in the Department of Mathematics and Computer
Science at Bridgewater State College. She is Co-Director (with Mr. Harman) of
the GeoGraphics Laboratory at the Moakley Center for Technological Applications.
She is the principal investigator of the 2005 National Transit Use of GIS
Survey. Mr. Harman is the president of Harman Consulting LLC and a co-director
the GeoGraphics Laboratory, a public/private partnership with Bridgewater State
College. He is principal investigator of a Federal Transit
Administration-sponsored Small Business Innovative Research (SBIR) project using
remote sensing and unmanned aerial vehicles for transit safety and security. Mr.
Harman and Dr. Shama are co-principal investigators of the Federal Transit
Administration’s WiFi e-transit village prototype research project.
Ani Thakar
Ani Thakar a Research Scientist in the Center for Astrophysical Sciences at the
Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. My research is centered around data
intensive science with large astronomical databases. I am primarily involved in
the development of data mining tools and services for the Sloan Digital Sky
Survey Science Archive (www.sdss.jhu.edu) and the US National Virtual
Observatory (www.us-vo.org). I am also
involved in the development and planning for the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope
(www.lsst.org).
Tomislav Urban
Urban is currently Manager of the Data and Information Systems group at the
Texas Advanced Computing Center. He has worked at TACC for three years, focusing
on database and scientific data collections issues. Prior to TACC, Urban worked
for several years as an application and database architect in the private
sector.
Dan Werthimer
Dan Werthimer is director of the Serendip Seti program and chief scientist of
SETI@home at the University of California, Berkeley. Werthimer was associate
professor in the engineering and physics departments of San Francisco State
University and has been a visiting professor at Beijing Normal University, the
University of St. Charles in Marseille, Eotvos University in Budapest, and
taught at universities in Peru, Egypt, Ghana, Ethiopia, Zimbabwe, Uganda and
Kenya. Werthimer has published numerous papers in the fields of SETI, radio
astronomy, instrumentation and science education; he is co-author of “SETI 2020”
and editor of “Astronomical and Biochemical Origins and the Search for Life in
the Universe”.
