The Secretary’s Honor Awards, which include Achievement Awards and Excellence Awards, recognize DOE employees and contractors for their service and contributions to the department’s mission and the benefit of the nation.
The team was recognized for their achievements in successfully delivering the ECP, a seven-year, $1.8-billion collaboration between many DOE laboratories to create the world’s first sustainable exascale computing ecosystem. Over the course of the project, nearly 3,000 researchers and engineers received funding, leading to the development and enhancement of key scientific application codes to provide breakthrough simulation results on exascale computers. Additionally, more than 70 exascale-capable software technology products were delivered in an integrated package widely used by the high performance computing (HPC) community.
The first-of-its-kind software research, development, and deployment project was jointly managed by the DOE Office of Science and the National Nuclear Security Administration, with leadership from Argonne, Lawrence Berkeley, Lawrence Livermore, Los Alamos, Oak Ridge, and Sandia National Laboratories. According to DOE, the leadership team “employed a hybrid of agile and traditional management practices, allowing the team to deliver leading-edge computing hardware and advanced software while utilizing disciplined project management approaches.”
Additionally, according to DOE, the project’s success was driven by the integration of more than 100 teams, facilitated by annual meetings, an effective communications approach, and shared-fate milestones within a culture of teamwork and innovation. ECP also established public-private partnerships by funding vendors to prepare the domestic industry for exascale system procurements, enhancing U.S. competitiveness in the global computing market.
“I know firsthand that ECP brought together a remarkable set of researchers and engineers as part of a team that was focused on building an amazing exascale software ecosystem, including both software tools and scientific applications, and integrating this effort with the HPC systems being deployed across DOE,” said Jonathan Carter, Associate Lab Director in the Berkeley Lab Computing Sciences Area. “It’s great to see this effort being recognized in this way.”
A ceremony for the honorees took place on January 8 in Washington, D.C. Awardees from Berkeley Lab include Carl Steefel (EESA), Dan Kasen (Physics), Daniel Martin (AMCR), David McCallen (EESA), Debbie Bard (NERSC), Jack Deslippe (NERSC), Jean-Luc Vay (ATAP), John Bell (AMCR), John Shalf (AMCR), Jonathan Carter (CS Area), Katie Antypas (NERSC), Kathy Yelick (CS Area), Nick Sauter (BioSciences), Osni Marques (AMCR), Paul Hargrove (AMCR), Paul Lin (NERSC), Phil Colella (AMCR), Richard Gerber (NERSC), Shahzeb Siddiqui (NERSC), Sherry Li (AMCR), and Suren Byna (AMCR).
About Computing Sciences at Berkeley Lab
High performance computing plays a critical role in scientific discovery. Researchers increasingly rely on advances in computer science, mathematics, computational science, data science, and large-scale computing and networking to increase our understanding of ourselves, our planet, and our universe. Berkeley Lab's Computing Sciences Area researches, develops, and deploys new foundations, tools, and technologies to meet these needs and to advance research across a broad range of scientific disciplines.