From Among Hundreds of Applicants, Two IACS Graduate Students are Chosen to Present at SuperComputing 2014

Two Ph.D. Stony Brook University graduate students in the Applied Mathematics & Statistics Department were chosen to present their research at the SuperComputing 2014 (SC14) annual conference, to be held this year in New Orleans, Louisiana November 17-21.

Mr. Li Zhang and Ms. Na Zhang, working with Professor Yuefan Deng who is an affiliate faculty member in the Institute for Advanced Computational Science (IACS), were selected and will present posters at this premier conference where their work will be viewed by a prestigious audience of more than ten thousand from all corners of the world. “The SC14 Technical Posters program received 193 regular, electronic, and education poster submissions and 44 ACM SRC poster submissions, which covered a wide variety of research topics in HPC,” read the acceptance emails sent to the students and their advisor. “The committee has accepted 76 regular, electronic, and education posters and 23 ACM SRC student posters, reflecting an average acceptance of 39% for regular, electronic, and education posters as well as an average acceptance of 52% for the ACM SRC posters.”

Li Zhang

Li Zhang, an Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) member, was accepted to present at the conference under the ACM Student Research Competition (SRC) category. His poster, “A Molecular Model for Platelets at Multiple Scales and Simulations on Supercomputers,” along with a video of his presentation will be available on the conference webpage at http://sc14.supercomputing.org. "I am very excited about being accepted, and it will be my first time to show my work at this wonderful event,” said Li. “The ACM SRC is a very competitive program, and I will do my best to present myself, catching up with the latest developments of HPC for future study."

Na Zhang

Na Zhang will present under the regular and education poster category. Her work is entitled “A Multiple Time Stepping Algorithm for Efficient Multiscale Modeling of Platelets Flowing in Blood Plasma.” It will be her second time attending this event: Last year Na presented her work as part of the SC13 Doctoral Showcase Program. “I'm honored to be accepted to present at the prestigious SC14 conference again. I'm very happy to be able to attend this year's SC14 to showcase my latest results and learn more about the impact and new trends of HPC.”

Both students’ work involves molecular modeling and supercomputing based on platelets biophysics. Their advanced research models platelets at multiple scales with accurate mechanics and dynamics, and successfully simulates these models on high-performance computing resources with updated computational methods. “Their work represents the state-of-the-art applications of supercomputers to problems of vital importance to our health that few other methods can match for quantitative understanding. Like many problems in life sciences and medicine, the study of platelets is very challenging and the students have made baby steps forward. I’m glad the SC14 review committees recognized their efforts,” Professor Deng commented proudly.

Li and Na will have their travel supported by the AMS Department for $400 per student. Also, as a participant under the ACM SRC program, Li will be funded up to $500 by the ACM SRC Travel Award, which is sponsored by Microsoft Research. Although both students will be eligible to win best poster awards, if Li wins first place he will be entered into the SRC Grand Finals (Grand Finals are judged over the internet). Winners of the Grand Finals are invited (with their faculty advisor) to the annual ACM Awards Banquet where the ACM Turing Award is presented. 

The Institute for Advanced Computational Science engages faculty, students and postdocs from a wide variety of academic backgrounds, all of whom have research interests that involve the use of high-performance and data-intensive computing. The pervasive entrepreneurial, think-tank culture of networking and support at IACS enables those who participate in their events to make connections that elevate careers and electrify curiosity. Students and postdocs conducting research in computational science are of particular interest to institute faculty, and every effort is made to generate support and promote opportunities to help further their careers in relevant fields. To find out more about IACS and the schedule of events, see http://iacs.stonybrook.edu/events.