New Employee Profiles - October 2014

Lauren Goodfriend, CRD ANAG

Lauren Goodfriend

As a new postdoctoral researcher in the Computational Research Division’s (CRD) Applied Numerical Algorithms Group (ANAG), Lauren Goodfriend will work on climate modeling using adaptive mesh refinement.

As a student, Goodfriend was interested in both math and engineering. In fact, she holds two undergraduate degrees—a BA in Math and a BS in Engineering—from Swarthmore College in Philadelphia, Pa. 

“When looking at graduate school, I discovered I could do both math and engineering at the same time if I studied numerical methods for fluid mechanics, so I did that.” says Goodfriend, who worked on adaptive mesh refinement for atmospheric studies as a graduate student at UC Berkeley.

A native of New England, Goodfriend enjoys dancing ceili (an Irish social dance) and waltz. She also likes to spend time outdoors backpacking and tinkering.

Bhupender Thakur, NERSC CSG

Bhupender Thakur

As the newest computer systems engineer in the National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center’s (NERSC’s) Computational Systems Group (CSG), Bhupender Thakur will work to keep resources provided to the Joint Genome Institute (JGI) up and running, and in good health. 

A native of India, Thakur came to the United States to pursue a Ph.D. in Physics at the University of Delaware. Shortly after receiving his doctorate in 2010, Thakur took a job at Louisiana State University’s High Performance Computing (LSU-HPC) in Baton Rouge, where he helped researchers use the university’s HPC resources, and later served in a systems support role, similar to the position he currently holds at NERSC.

“In graduate school, I found that my research was inseparably tied to my computing skills. Somehow I spent more time dealing with computational intricacies, which led me to a career in HPC,” says Thakur.

In his free time, Thakur enjoys spending time outdoors, gardening  and playing chess.