Supercomputer Users Group Elects Leadership

COLUMBUS, Ohio (Nov 2, 2004) — 

The Ohio Supercomputer Center (OSC) announced the election of new officers for its Statewide Users Group (SUG).

At its October 2004 meeting, OSC’s SUG elected Dr. Austin Melton, of Kent State University (KSU), to the position of Chair and Robert Marcus, of Central State University, to the Vice-Chair position. Dr. Christopher Hadad, from The Ohio State University (OSU) Chemistry Department was appointed Chair of the SUG Allocations Committee.

Austin Melton earned his Ph.D. in mathematics from Kansas State University in 1980. Early in his career Melton held teaching and research positions in mathematics at Marshall University, and in computer science at Wichita State University and Kansas State University.  He has had visiting positions at the Universities of Copenhagen, Cape Town, Bremen, and Stellenbosch (South Africa). In 1992, Melton became the first chair of the Computer Science Department at Michigan Tech University. Two years later, he started and became the first director of the Computational Science Ph.D. program at Michigan Tech University.  From 1996-2000, Melton was Chair of the Department of Mathematics and Computer Science at KSU.  He is currently working to create an Institute for Computational Science at KSU, and to promote academic-business interactions.  He is also the Interim Associate Dean in the College of Arts and Sciences at KSU. His research interests include lattice theory, software engineering, and mathematics education.

The newly-elected SUG Vice-Chair, Robert Marcus, is an Assistant Professor at Central State University, Department of Natural Science, Mathematics, and Computer Science.  He received his M.S. in Computer Science from Wright State University.  He has chaired technology committees at Central State as well as coordinated curriculum for the High Performance Computing Summer Institute, sponsored by the U.S. Department of Defense. His research interests include: Parallel Computing; Computational Science and Visualization of Data with applications for solving linear and nonlinear systems; and instructional technologies for teaching undergraduate parallel computing using animation and graphical techniques.

The recently-appointed SUG Allocations Committee Chair, Dr. Christopher Hadad, is an Associate Professor of Chemistry at OSU.  He earned his Ph.D. in Organic Chemistry from Yale University in 1993. Some of his honors include: a National Science Foundation Post-Doctoral Fellowship; a Fannie and John Hertz Pre-Doctoral Fellowship; and an Onsager Fellowship.  His research interests include kinetics and thermodynamics of reactive intermediates in gas and condensed phases.

About SUG
Input from the scientists and engineers who use OSC is critical to the establishment of policy and developing a roadmap for OSC’s future.

There is a growing synergy in the research community promoting the advancement of computational methods within and between disciplines. The Statewide Users Group is an advisory group that provides invaluable input to the leadership team at OSC. SUG meets bi-monthly and is headed by a chairperson elected yearly from its membership.  The SUG has established Allocations, Software and Activities, and Hardware and Operations standing committees to assist in providing advice and direction to the Center.

University presidents, provosts, or vice-presidents of research appoint SUG members, often with the recommendation of department chairs and others.

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