John Melchi and Rob Pennington, two leaders from Urbana’s National Center for Supercomputing Applications, were in D.C. this week to promote UIUC’s Blue Waters Supercomputer at events hosted by the Coalition for National Science Funding.
On May 8, they joined OGR representatives at The Science Coalition’s “Breakfast of Champions”, where Rep. Hultgren was honored with the Champion of Science Award (He received a ‘Wheaties’ box with his likeness). UI President Robert A. Easter had presented an award to Rep. Hultgren at FermiLab in his congressional district last October. Melchi and Pennington were able to advocate for UI supercomputing abilities to Rep. Hultgren, who is the house author of supercomputing legislation set to be filed in the near future.