Prof. Caudell To Direct Center for High Performance Computing

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ECE Prof. Thomas P. Caudell has been named to direct UNM's Center for High Performance Computing, an assignement that begins February 1.

Prof. Caudell will take over directorship of CHPC from Computer Science Prof. Barney Maccabe, who was appointed interim Chief Information Officer for UNM, effective February 1, following the retirement of William Adkins. Here is a PDF of the announcement by Provost Reed Dasenbrock.

The Center for High Performance Computing states its goal as being "to provide the infrastructure and facilities needed to continue the growth of computing-based research at UNM. We strive to foster new, interdisciplinary collaborations based on computation and to encourage novel applications of computation in research while continuing to grow traditional applications of computing in the science and engineering disciplines."

Prof. Caudell has been actively involved with CHPC since its beginnings in 1994, particularly in relation to his work with visualization and neural networks. With help from CHPC he also created the Visualization Lab, which collaborates closely with UNM's multidisciplinary ARTS Lab. Because it makes extensive use of computing, the ARTS (Art, Research, Technology & Science) Lab's Garage is co-located with CHPC in the old Galles building near the corner of University and Central.

Prof. Caudell's work both with the Visualization Lab and with neural networks is highly dependent on computing power, so his collaborations with CHPC have been symbiotic. "Usually visualization work is associated with supercomputing centers," he said. "It involves large data sets and needs those sorts of tools." The additional computing muscle will also be important for the simulations Prof. Caudell wants to do in his ongoing work with neural networks. So as a longtime CHPC customer he has insight into what makes the center work.

Prof. Caudell's research interests include neural networks, virtual reality, machine vision, robotics and genetic algorithms. He will continue his research and teaching with ECE while serving as director of CHPC.

Students and faculty members who are interested in learning more about the Center for High Performance Computing or who would like to find out whether the center can make a difference in their work should e-mail Prof. Caudell at tpc@ece.unm.edu.