New Employee Profiles - February 2017

Juliette Ugirumurera, CRD

Juliette Ugirumurera

As a new postdoctoral research fellow in CRD’s Scalable Solvers Group, Juliette Ugirumurera will be developing high-performance algorithms to solve large-scale traffic engineering problems. She will focus on projects that predict near-future traffic flow from real-time measurements, as well as help traffic management centers improve performance of road networks and reduce congestion.

Before coming to Berkeley Lab, Ugirumurera was pursuing her Ph.D. in Computer Science at the University of Texas at Dallas where she modeled and designed algorithms to solve complex problems in Microgrid power systems. She credits her internships at Pivot Access, a Rwandan financial software company, and General Electric Transportation with teaching her to work in a group to address complex problems—a skill that will be useful in her work at Berkeley Lab.

Originally from Rwanda, Ugirumurera notes that her interest in computing sparked as a secondary school student when she spoke with her software developer brother about his work. “I fell in love with computing, particularly computer science, when I took my first C++ programming class as a freshman at Oklahoma Christian University,” she says. “I enjoyed writing programs to solve problems and was excited about the potential of computing and software to address real life problems.”

In her free time, Ugirumurera likes to read, visit museums and art galleries, do Zumba and take walks in nature.

Michele Rosso, CRD

Michele Rosso

As a computational science postdoctoral researcher in the Computational Research Division’s Center for Computational Sciences & Engineering, Michele Rosso will be working on MFIX, a numerical code for the simulation of multi-phase flows.

Before coming to Berkeley Lab, Rosso was working toward his Ph.D. in Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at UC Irvine. He earned his doctorate last September. While pursuing his degree, Rosso interned at MSC Software where he worked on quality assurance of Nastran’s Krylov solver for the solution of parametrized linear systems arising from frequency response analysis, tested Nastran’s wrapper interface to different flavors of the MPI library and ported additional MPI functions into Nastran to increase the parallel capabilities of the software. 

He notes that he got into computing when a friend suggested that he learned Linux. “When I did, I was forced to learned the intricacies of computing and eventually got hooked, pair this with the interest that I’ve always had for math and that’s how I got here,” says Rosso.

Originally from Italy, Rosso earned his Bachelors and Masters degrees in Aerospace Engineering from Politecnico di Torino in Turin. He came to the US in 2010 to attend UC Irvine. In his free time, he likes to swim competitively and is currently looking for a master swim team. Rosso also likes to cook, hangout with friends and go clubbing. 

Aliseo Purpura-Pontoniere, NERSC

Aliseo Purpura-Pontoniere

Last month, Aliseo Purpura-Pontoniere officially joined NERSC’s Operations Technology Group as a site reliability engineer, where he will be working with the Energy Sciences Network (ESnet). Though he is a new Berkeley Lab employee, Purpura-Pontoniere has been working in this role as a contractor since last February.

“My interest in computing started when I was pretty young, my dad was a journalist and got an Apple II for work. I remember watching him play a game on it—maybe chess or checkers? Ever since then, I've been involved in computers any way that I can, building my own computers for home servers and gaming,” says Purpura-Pontoniere. 

A native of San Francisco, Purpura-Pontoniere earned his Bachelors degree in Italian studies from UC Berkeley. After college he worked as a professional cook, while taking night classes in programming and UNIX/Linux system administration.  This position at NERSC is his first in computing. 

In his free time, Purpura-Pontoniere enjoys fixing things like cars and computers, and spending time outside scuba diving and hiking. He also likes to cook and is currently in the middle of building a sous-vide machine.

Dionne Myers, CRD

Dionne Myers

This month, Dionne Myers joins CRD as an administrator for the Computer Architecture, Performance and Algorithms, Computer Languages & System Software, and Data Analytics and Visualization groups.  Myers began working at Berkeley Lab last October, filling in as David Brown’s Administrative Assistant, while Nia Eteiwi was on maternity leave.

Myers comes to Berkeley Lab with experience in a variety of areas from retail to civil service, which has given her the opportunity to interact with people from all walks of life.  Originally from New Orleans, Myers moved to the Bay Area 25 years ago and immediately fell in love with the weather and diversity. 

In her free time, Myers enjoys weightlifting. She works out five to six times a week and is currently studying to be a certified personal trainer.