aaron black
HPC Software Architect at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
hpc software architect lawrence livermore national laboratory
work team physicist , computer scientist , applied mathematician high performance , massively parallel , multi-physics simulation code . majority time spent assisting code team refactoring algorithm code infrastructure take advantage heterogenous architecture sierra supercomputer , sited llnl . sierra one fastest supercomputer world , rated 120-150 petaflops . work also progressing adapting code run next generation supercomputer , el capitan . architecture provide nnsa 's first exascale system , providing 10x performance jump sierra . interested career summer student internship working fastest supercomputer world , bleeding edge , feel free contact check job site http : //jobs.llnl.gov
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
https://www.linkedin.com/company/lawrence-livermore-national-laboratory
Advanced Architecture and Portability Specialists Team (AAPS), Deterministic Transport Code Team

The AAPS team is tasked with assisting code groups across LLNL with evolving their codes to run on next generation architectures.  This position is very challenging, but also very rewarding, and something I had wanted to do ever since attending the ATPESC training at Argonne and hearing about their Catalyst team HPC architects.

I managed efforts on two teams engaged in porting their respective code projects to the GPU's for Sierra and El Capitan.  The first is a thermal radiative transfer code and the second is a hydrodynamics code.  Each code base presents unique challenges in where their algorithm performance lies and technical challenges we are facing.  Further complexities arise when these code bases are compiled into the same executable to run a hydro + transport physics problem.  These codes are written in C, C++, and Fortran and use technologies such as OpenMP, CUDA, ROCM.  The job entails heavy use of profiling tools and understanding the available parallelism and memory vs compute performance balance of the algorithms.

I currently split my time between HPC work and general software engineering work.  We're currently working on standing up a new simulation code using high order transport methods.  High order solutions show a lot of promise of mapping well to GPUs.
Livermore
https://media-exp1.licdn.com/dms/image/C560BAQFMlbXI0yNbpw/company-logo_100_100/0/1625587530285?e=1655942400&v=beta&t=pOB2lXbBJroayHmPBDL2UF7u-PnZVfuvnvga91ZGlVc
HPC Software Architect
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
https://www.linkedin.com/company/lawrence-livermore-national-laboratory
I've worked on a variety of parallel multi-physics simulation codes written in C, C++, Python, and Fortran.  These codes typically use a bulk synchronous, domain decomposed parallel model ( as opposed to asynchronous task based ) and employ MPI (off-node communication) and OpenMP (on-node).

My first eight years at LLNL was spent on the hydrodynamics code 'KULL' which used a python frontend for problem steering, and a heavily templated C++ backend.
San Francisco Bay Area
https://media-exp1.licdn.com/dms/image/C560BAQFMlbXI0yNbpw/company-logo_100_100/0/1625587530285?e=1655942400&v=beta&t=pOB2lXbBJroayHmPBDL2UF7u-PnZVfuvnvga91ZGlVc
Software Engineer
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
https://www.linkedin.com/company/lawrence-livermore-national-laboratory
KULL Project

I found being a team lead a great learning experience for developing many soft skills in team interaction, technical leadership, and managing team personnel.  My project manager was a superb mentor in providing tips and advice on effectively managing people.  I ended up stepping away from this role to allow me more time to pursue developing my skills in the HPC architecture area.
San Francisco Bay Area
https://media-exp1.licdn.com/dms/image/C560BAQFMlbXI0yNbpw/company-logo_100_100/0/1625587530285?e=1655942400&v=beta&t=pOB2lXbBJroayHmPBDL2UF7u-PnZVfuvnvga91ZGlVc
Software Engineer Team Lead
Barco
https://www.linkedin.com/company/barco
Embedded programming using C++ on media devices.

I don't recall the exact start month on this job, this is an estimate.   This was a part-time position while I was taking my Master's classes.  Good team of people.
Sacramento, California Area
https://media-exp1.licdn.com/dms/image/C560BAQEvfE9WNUeNYw/company-logo_100_100/0/1519855921040?e=1655942400&v=beta&t=OJPPsVcNZ4z60meTUGy4_U7LEiiOir5bvmn2LyNn3kM
Software Engineer
Booz Allen Hamilton
https://www.linkedin.com/company/booz-allen-hamilton
Worked on a contract for NASA to replace their legacy financial systems with SAP R/3 modules.  Our four person team's main task was setting up and running a help desk to provide support during  the roll-out of each module.  The contract also included post-rollout support until the help desk procedures were finalized and the needed NASA personnel were trained and familiar with the system.  At the end of the contract, we handed over the help desk to long-term personnel.

Booz Allen's performance was lauded by NASA personnel at Dryden on this software rollout.  The previous contracted company had over-run the budget and failed to deliver on their developer software system.
Greater Los Angeles Area
https://media-exp1.licdn.com/dms/image/C560BAQFPpNskJI7fng/company-logo_100_100/0/1604073354912?e=1655942400&v=beta&t=jB_Ddmz4GKzAjzCOLVy4eScxl0nPN79ezHFrSOE5SlE
Consultant
Self-Employed
Started my own company as a computer consultant.  I built and sold computers, linux web servers, and troubleshooted software and hardware issues.  I found the experience of running your own business a challenging, but very valuable learning experience.
San Luis Obispo, California Area
Independent Consultant
Information Presentation Tech, iptech.com
Worked on a four person team developing the nAct product, an intranet pre-press workflow solution.  nAct used a distributed computing approach, using workstations as print process servers and an nAct server to monitor and  control jobs and process queues using Internet Explorer as the GUI.   Product was built on html, javascript, jsp, CORBA, and SQL.
San Luis Obispo, California Area
Software/Web Developer
California Polytechnic State University-San Luis Obispo
https://www.linkedin.com/company/california-polytechnic-state-university-san-luis-o
Typical desktop and networking support position in a university.
- Troubleshoot and install desktop products, networks, etc, for Windows and Macs.
- Moderate level of HTML work for university intranet.
San Luis Obispo, California Area
https://media-exp1.licdn.com/dms/image/C560BAQE6Ud53o_AMJw/company-logo_100_100/0/1568413511511?e=1655942400&v=beta&t=7slFKHWlxzgpgBJQ3yW4lK2c3WNE4VycuNI14bMZQiQ
Support Technician, Web Developer
Seagate Technology
https://www.linkedin.com/company/seagate-technology
Software quality assurance engineer at Seagate, working on the Seagate Backup Exec product.

This software group went through a few different companies over my career - Arcata, Seagate, and now owned Veritas Software.

The testing methodology at Arcata was pretty unorganized, mostly ad-hoc testing, or repetitive testing of test suites by hand, and testing using the full product only (no underlying testing framework to remove the gui element).  The team consisted primarily of part-time college students and a few career level people.

During my time there, we vastly improved the testing practices to include an automation lab, an actual test harness that could be scripted, white box testing, driver testing, and increasing the involvement of SQA's in the development process.  It was still a bit behind typical companies when I left, but it was a great learning experience (and challenging) to push these changes through the company culture and practices, and educate developers on the importance of total quality management.
San Luis Obispo, California Area
https://media-exp1.licdn.com/dms/image/C4E0BAQFZR49QQSaeDA/company-logo_100_100/0/1625152579657?e=1655942400&v=beta&t=G2JSzIQicK91YkJ-Ag-s6reRD8dNRIpTekRlfpa94OI
Quality Assurance Software Engineer
Computer Engineering
Part-time student on-and-off during this period while working.
https://media-exp1.licdn.com/dms/image/C560BAQE6Ud53o_AMJw/company-logo_100_100/0/1568413511511?e=1655942400&v=beta&t=7slFKHWlxzgpgBJQ3yW4lK2c3WNE4VycuNI14bMZQiQ
California Polytechnic State University-San Luis Obispo
https://www.linkedin.com/school/california-polytechnic-state-university-san-luis-o/
Masters (incomplete)
Part-time
I left the Master's program to accept employment at LLNL.

My LLNL job experience at this point has surpassed what I would gain from finishing that degree... so it's unlikely I'll complete it.
Computer Science
https://media-exp1.licdn.com/dms/image/C560BAQGRS08mpEbpIA/company-logo_100_100/0/1588017527799?e=1655942400&v=beta&t=nRMuDH6vdxaq7tCphhirtYbCb-iP3t_WSD7OuX0VwvU
CSU Sacramento
https://www.linkedin.com/school/sacstate/
Bachelors
I took about 20 units here for the Bachelors.  Most of the coursework for the degree was transferred in from CalPoly San Luis Obispo.
Computer Science
CSU Sacramento
Argonne Training Program on Extreme-Scale Computing
2014
Super Computing
2014
I'm coordinating a team and implementing a port of a radiation transport FORTRAN code (TETON) to CUDA Fortran and OpenMP 4.5, for the upcoming LLNL Sierra supercomputer.

More info on this type of work at:
https://asc.llnl.gov/DOE-COE-Mtg-2016/talks/1-17_Rennich.pdf
Raditation Transport on GPU
https://asc.llnl.gov/DOE-COE-Mtg-2016/talks/1-17_Rennich.pdf
KULL Project

KULL is a multi-physics, high performance, parallel simulation code modeling High Energy Density Physics problems.

The majority of this code is written in C++, with heavy use of generic programming, templating, and modern C++ concepts.  We have a steering and control layer written in Python and our C++ assets wrapped using SWIG and PyBindgen.  It is a massively parallel code, using MPI and OpenMP to achieve runs scaled out to a million cores.

I held several roles on this project over my 9 years there- a senior software engineer role, computer science team lead role, and an informal software architect role.

These roles overlapped, but the architect role dealt more with migrating the code to challenges 5-10 years out.  In this informal role I found increasing opportunities to work with people outside my project to collaborate on shared challenges facing all the code groups, including code groups from other labs.  One multi-project effort I had the opportunity to work on was evaluating an abstraction layer for our codes for-loops that could sit on top of CUDA, OpenCL, OpenMP, etc.  This approach allows us to mitigate the risk of adopting any one vendor solution or needing to write separate kernels for each architecture.

Another unique opportunity I was part of was developing the computer science requirements for a brand new LLNL multi-physics parallel simulation code designed for next generation hardware.  This later led to me taking a position on the new code project and reducing my time to 50% on the KULL project.

I continued to deliver code features but my remaining time was typically reserved for leading small team efforts or individual code work requiring deeper domain knowledge of the infrastructure or physics packages.  I also continued to mentor newer team members and provide direction for  threading work by the team.
KULL multiphysics HEDP code
LLNL is developing a code called MARBL, which is their new next generation multi-physics application code for simulating high-energy-density physics.  I've been working on a variety of areas in this project - a simulation data repository components called 'sidre' (2016), restart/checkpoint capability in the hydrodynamics package BLAST, and other deliverables where needed.  For 2017 I'm focusing more on MFEM ( high order finite element library ).  The high order fem is providing a promising approach for providing more compute and less memory transfer ( ideal for GPU's and newer architectures ).
LLNL next generation code - high order FEM
Implemented trial of LLNL RAJA portability layer for MIC/GPU/OPENMP/CUDA in KULL hydrodynamics code for BG/Q platform.

More info at:
http://computation.llnl.gov/projects/raja-managing-application-portability-next-generation-platforms
Next-Gen Portability Layer
http://computation.llnl.gov/projects/raja-managing-application-portability-next-generation-platforms
https://www.linkedin.com/in/scot-olivier-a2053996
Livermore, CA
Scot Olivier
Program Leader for Nonproliferation Research and Development
https://www.linkedin.com/in/janice-stanford-445208aa
San Jose, CA
Janice Stanford
Procurement Specialist  at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
https://www.linkedin.com/in/ginny-rios-96590449
Livermore, CA
Ginny Rios
Administrative Specialist at LLNL
https://www.linkedin.com/in/shawn-moudy-a42a541b5
Livermore, CA
Shawn Moudy
Waste Characterization Group Leader at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
https://www.linkedin.com/in/david-lo-2b43a71b6
San Ramon, CA
David Lo
CA Real Estate Broker & General Building Contractor
https://www.linkedin.com/in/pablo-arias-72459642
Livermore, CA
Pablo Arias
Security Engineer at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
https://www.linkedin.com/in/germie-pascua
Tracy, CA
Germie Pascua
HRIS Professional
https://www.linkedin.com/in/nick-lola-66014912a
San Francisco Bay Area
Nick Lola
Creative Associate of Human Resources
https://www.linkedin.com/in/john-hernandez-49475597
Livermore, CA
John Hernandez
Senior System & Network Associate at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeremy-thomas-09ba5a38
Livermore, CA
Jeremy Thomas
Public Information Officer at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
https://www.linkedin.com/in/jennifer-l-97a1a4192
San Francisco Bay Area
Jennifer L.
Hiring Administrator at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
https://www.linkedin.com/in/eric-pouyoul-2b12701
San Francisco, CA
Eric Pouyoul
Engineer at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
https://www.linkedin.com/in/nadimtahmass
San Diego, CA
Nadim Tahmass
Software Engineer at Leidos
https://pr.linkedin.com/in/maxbarfuss
Vega Alta
Max Barfuss
Software Engineer at Space Dynamics Laboratory
https://www.linkedin.com/in/kevinwestwood
Hyde Park, UT
Kevin Westwood
Program Manager at Space Dynamics Laboratory
https://www.linkedin.com/in/pravindrarathore
Mesa, AZ
Pravindra Rathore
Manager | Senior DevOps Engineer at General Dynamics Mission Systems
https://www.linkedin.com/in/cass-dalton-928912b
Washington DC-Baltimore Area
Cass Dalton
Software Engineer at Expedition Technology Inc
https://www.linkedin.com/in/michele-fox-a676789
Denver Metropolitan Area
Michele Fox
Senior Director Data Insights at Spectrum
https://www.linkedin.com/in/markkellycissp
Grapevine, TX
Mark Kelly
Software Engineer at General Dynamics Electric Boat
https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeff-danowski-a0645429
Charleston, SC
Jeff Danowski
Software Engineer at nCino, Inc.
Liked by Aaron Black
https://www.linkedin.com/signup/cold-join
Proud of our work with pharmaceutical leader GSK to train an epigenomic BERT model in a mere 2.5 days (vs 24 days on a GPU cluster). With our CS-1…
Liked by Aaron Black
https://www.linkedin.com/signup/cold-join
For the first time, the National Ignition Facility laser experiment has produced a self-sustaining fusion burn in a millimeter-sized capsule, Debra…
Shared by Aaron Black
https://www.linkedin.com/signup/cold-join
LLNL’s National Ignition Facility (NIF) made a significant step forward on #fusion ignition on Aug. 8, achieving a yield of more than 1.3 megajoules.…
https://www.linkedin.com/in/aaron-black-5549448
St Louis, MO
Aaron Black
Art Director at Foundry Software
https://www.linkedin.com/in/aaron-black246
Lihue, HI
Aaron Black
Front End Product Developer at Scorpion
https://www.linkedin.com/in/aaron-black-b055a4a
Mt. Joy, PA
Aaron Black
Director of Operations at Wilkins-Rogers, Inc./Spanglers Flour Mill
https://au.linkedin.com/in/aaron-black
Bolton Point, NS
Aaron Black
Account Manager at NHS
https://www.linkedin.com/in/aaron-black-4553574b
West Palm Beach, FL
Aaron Black
Senior Training Specialist at Comcast
High Performance & Super Computing
https://media-exp1.licdn.com/dms/image/C4E07AQGkI_e4GTI1uA/group-logo_image-shrink_200x200/0/1631381132801?e=1647694800&v=beta&t=MrpHp4_BVWvUlK7nqiDHvWQp7tKexFafIhjukJyM7Qg
https://www.linkedin.com/groups/95317
Multicore & Parallel Computing & Big Data & AI
https://media-exp1.licdn.com/dms/image/C4D07AQHL4qxrIWm7Qw/group-logo_image-shrink_92x92/0/1525125669040?e=1647694800&v=beta&t=LiW24PAnlbUNDISdW2c0IK9ZNVv2EAdgrGj-cdRIt6Q
https://www.linkedin.com/groups/1156517
ATPESC2014
https://media-exp1.licdn.com/dms/image/C4E07AQHB4D3JjMCDLQ/group-logo_image-shrink_200x200/0/1631379133761?e=1647694800&v=beta&t=d5Wnx717s8znXSUgKMTXDI04q8qcDDUAEoSx5Xxm3aU
https://www.linkedin.com/groups/6748145
C++ Professionals
https://media-exp1.licdn.com/dms/image/C4D07AQF9s0d3eTEceQ/group-logo_image-shrink_200x200/0/1631361832384?e=1647694800&v=beta&t=5_QmM0HkZNLzPDc8Q6ESNPAzAYEpYIY8p9QKKT4IoSs
https://www.linkedin.com/groups/100895
High Performance Computing (HPC).
https://media-exp1.licdn.com/dms/image/C4D07AQHTwc9sMUu7wQ/group-logo_image-shrink_200x200/0/1631369636630?e=1647694800&v=beta&t=QtRCUk4pdvIrBTMBvUWKS6jL8jVkyXFiKqIvbFEnYvM
https://www.linkedin.com/groups/87791
Exascale Computing
https://static-exp1.licdn.com/sc/h/4h1ldzvvebtszyx75ve7dst1v
https://www.linkedin.com/groups/2631527