Aydın Buluç, 2010 Alvarez Fellow

April 12, 2010

As the 2010 Luis W. Alvarez Fellow, Aydın Buluç will apply his expertise in combinational scientific computing primarily to increasing the reliability of the electrical grid and improve the nation's ability to respond to energy disruptions as a member of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory's High Performance Computing Research Department (HPCRD). His research interests include parallel computing, combinatorial scientific computing, high performance graph analysis and sparse matrix computations.

"Berkeley Lab always seemed like a special place to me because it offered a unique combination of excellence in research, cultural diversity, and proximity to a leading university. I first learned about the Luis W. Alvarez fellowship in 2008, and it was always in my plans to apply," says Buluç, who earned a doctorate in Computer Science from the University of California at Santa Barbara in 2010.

Originally from the Aegean region of Turkey, Buluç did not own a personal computer until he was in college. He was introduced to computer science in an undergraduate data structures course at Sabanci University in Istanbul. Shortly after he decided to major in computer science and minor in mathematics, and has "never looked back."

"I was fascinated by the combined elegance and practicality of computer science, it was a secret way of doing mathematics with more relevance to practical issues," says Buluç.

Though Buluç is a new to the Bay Area, he has admired the region's bridges and "beautiful landscapes in an urban setting." A self-described tango addict, Buluç spends much of his spare time dancing, taking portraits of people, eating good food and watching good cinema.

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.

Founded in 1931 on the belief that the biggest scientific challenges are best addressed by teams, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and its scientists have been recognized with 16 Nobel Prizes. Today, Berkeley Lab researchers develop sustainable energy and environmental solutions, create useful new materials, advance the frontiers of computing, and probe the mysteries of life, matter, and the universe. Scientists from around the world rely on the Lab’s facilities for their own discovery science. Berkeley Lab is a multiprogram national laboratory, managed by the University of California for the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Science.

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