NERSC's Jonathan Carter Named New Deputy for Berkeley Lab Computing Sciences

Jonathan Carter, who has led NERSC's User Services Group since 2005, has been named as the new Computing Sciences Deputy, succeeding Michael Banda who joined the Advanced Llight Source earlier this year. Carter was one of the first new employees hired when NERSC moved to Berkeley Lab in 1996.

"Jonathan brings an excellent range of experience to this position, and his tenure at LBNL and NERSC will help him get up to speed extremely quickly—something I am really excited to have in a new deputy," said Horst Simon, Associate Lab Director for Computing Sciences. "Jonathan's training as a computational scientist, his work in directly supporting NERSC users, and his experience in leading the recent procurement of Hopper, NERSC's next supercomputing system, made him an ideal candidate for this position."

Carter joined NERSC as a consultant in the User Services Group (USG) at the end of 1996, helping users learn to effectively use the computing systems. He became leader of USG at the end of 2005. Carter maintains an active interest in algorithms and architectures for high-end computing, and regularly participates in benchmarking and procurement activities to deploy new systems for NERSC. As part of collaborations with the Future Technologies Group in CRD, and the NERSC Advanced Technology Group, he has published several architecture evaluation studies, and looked at what it takes to move common simulation algorithms to exotic architectures. His applications work on the Japanese Earth Simulator earned him a nomination as Gordon Bell Prize finalist in 2005.

Before coming to NERSC, he worked at the IBM Almaden Research Center, developing computational chemistry methods and software, applying it to technological problems. Jonathan holds a Ph.D. in theoretical chemistry from the University of Sheffield, UK, followed by postdoctoral work at the University of British Columbia, Canada.

"I am very happy that Jonathan is taking on this important role for Computing Sciences,” said NERSC Division Director Kathy Yelick. "I'm confident that the skills he brought to advancing the scientific productivity of our users and managing large projects will be equally effective in meeting the goals of all of Computing Sciences."

Although Carter's appointment is effective immediately, he will continue in his role at NERSC as the leader of the Hopper project, the 1 petaflop/s Cray XE6 supercomputer being installed starting this month. His project leadership will continue through the testing and acceptance of the system.