In commemoration of the second birthday of the Blue Waters supercomputer, Sen. Mark Kirk and the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) held a panel discussion celebrating its accomplishments. Urbana Provost Ilesanmi Adesida provided welcoming remarks, and NCSADirector Edward Seidel provided an overview of NCSA's longstanding history of pioneering advances across a wide variety of fields. Sen. Kirk underscored that the United States needs to continue investing in high-performance computing in order to remain a global leader.
The panel consisted of the following Blue Waters users who shared examples of how the supercomputer has transformed their research:
- Leigh Orf (professor of Atmospheric Science, Central Michigan University) discussed how he is using Blue Waters to study the features in supercell thunderstorms to better understand the formation of tornadoes.
- Randy Huber (Advanced Virtual Product Development Manager, Caterpillar) spoke about how Blue Waters helps CAT drive value to their customers and provides access to talent that helps them be globally competitive.
- Rohit Bhargava (professor of Bioengineering at Urbana) explained how Blue Waters is changing cancer diagnostics by enabling new chemical imaging technology that will improve cancer detection and diagnosis.
- Klaus Schulten (a professor of Physics at Urbana) discussed how Blue Waters is helping fight antibiotic drug resistance and is opening a new chapter in HIV treatment.