Larry Smarr
Encyclopedia
Larry Smarr is a physicist
and leader in scientific computing, supercomputer
applications, and Internet
infrastructure.
He received both his BA and MS at the University of Missouri
in Columbia, Missouri
and received a Ph.D. in physics from the University of Texas at Austin
in 1975, did research at Princeton University
, Yale
, and Harvard
, and then joined the faculty of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
in 1979. He is presently a Professor of Computer Science and Information Technologies at the University of California, San Diego
.
While at Illinois Smarr wrote an ambitious proposal to address the future needs of scientific research. Seven other University of Illinois professors joined as co-Principal Investigators, and many others provided descriptions of what could be accomplished if the proposal were accepted. Formally titled A Center for Scientific and Engineering Supercomputing but known as the Black Proposal (after the color of its cover), it was submitted to the National Science Foundation
in 1983. A scant 10 pages long, it was the first unsolicited proposal accepted and approved by the NSF, and resulted in the charter of four supercomputer centers (Cornell, Illinois, Princeton, and San Diego), with a fifth (Pittsburgh) added later. In 1985 Smarr became the first director of the Illinois center, the National Center for Supercomputing Applications
.
Smarr continued to promote the benefits of technological innovation to scientific research, such as his advocacy of a high-speed network linking the national centers, which became the NSFnet
, one of the significant predecessors of today's Internet. When the NSF revised its funding of supercomputer centers in 1997, Smarr became director of the National Computational Science Alliance, linking dozens of universities and research labs with NCSA to prototype the concept of grid computing
.
In 2000, Smarr moved to California and proposed the creation of the California Institute for Telecommunications and Information Technology
(Calit2), linking departments and researchers at UCSD and UC Irvine
. Smarr currently serves as Institute Director of Calit2. As part of the work of Calit2, he is Principal Investigator on the NSF OptIPuter LambdaGrid project, an "optical backplane for planetary scale distributed computing".
He attended the Beyond Belief
symposium on November 2006 and presented at the 2010 Life Extension Conference.
In 2005, Smarr was awarded the Telluride Tech Festival Award of Technology in Telluride, Colorado.
Physicist
A physicist is a scientist who studies or practices physics. Physicists study a wide range of physical phenomena in many branches of physics spanning all length scales: from sub-atomic particles of which all ordinary matter is made to the behavior of the material Universe as a whole...
and leader in scientific computing, supercomputer
Supercomputer
A supercomputer is a computer at the frontline of current processing capacity, particularly speed of calculation.Supercomputers are used for highly calculation-intensive tasks such as problems including quantum physics, weather forecasting, climate research, molecular modeling A supercomputer is a...
applications, and Internet
Internet
The Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the standard Internet protocol suite to serve billions of users worldwide...
infrastructure.
He received both his BA and MS at the University of Missouri
University of Missouri
The University of Missouri System is a state university system providing centralized administration for four universities, a health care system, an extension program, five research and technology parks, and a publishing press. More than 64,000 students are currently enrolled at its four campuses...
in Columbia, Missouri
Columbia, Missouri
Columbia is the fifth-largest city in Missouri, and the largest city in Mid-Missouri. With a population of 108,500 as of the 2010 Census, it is the principal municipality of the Columbia Metropolitan Area, a region of 164,283 residents. The city serves as the county seat of Boone County and as the...
and received a Ph.D. in physics from the University of Texas at Austin
University of Texas at Austin
The University of Texas at Austin is a state research university located in Austin, Texas, USA, and is the flagship institution of the The University of Texas System. Founded in 1883, its campus is located approximately from the Texas State Capitol in Austin...
in 1975, did research at Princeton University
Princeton University
Princeton University is a private research university located in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. The school is one of the eight universities of the Ivy League, and is one of the nine Colonial Colleges founded before the American Revolution....
, Yale
Yale University
Yale University is a private, Ivy League university located in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701 in the Colony of Connecticut, the university is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States...
, and Harvard
Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...
, and then joined the faculty of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
The University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign is a large public research-intensive university in the state of Illinois, United States. It is the flagship campus of the University of Illinois system...
in 1979. He is presently a Professor of Computer Science and Information Technologies at the University of California, San Diego
University of California, San Diego
The University of California, San Diego, commonly known as UCSD or UC San Diego, is a public research university located in the La Jolla neighborhood of San Diego, California, United States...
.
While at Illinois Smarr wrote an ambitious proposal to address the future needs of scientific research. Seven other University of Illinois professors joined as co-Principal Investigators, and many others provided descriptions of what could be accomplished if the proposal were accepted. Formally titled A Center for Scientific and Engineering Supercomputing but known as the Black Proposal (after the color of its cover), it was submitted to the National Science Foundation
National Science Foundation
The National Science Foundation is a United States government agency that supports fundamental research and education in all the non-medical fields of science and engineering. Its medical counterpart is the National Institutes of Health...
in 1983. A scant 10 pages long, it was the first unsolicited proposal accepted and approved by the NSF, and resulted in the charter of four supercomputer centers (Cornell, Illinois, Princeton, and San Diego), with a fifth (Pittsburgh) added later. In 1985 Smarr became the first director of the Illinois center, the National Center for Supercomputing Applications
National Center for Supercomputing Applications
The National Center for Supercomputing Applications is an American state-federal partnership to develop and deploy national-scale cyberinfrastructure that advances science and engineering. NCSA operates as a unit of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign but it provides high-performance...
.
Smarr continued to promote the benefits of technological innovation to scientific research, such as his advocacy of a high-speed network linking the national centers, which became the NSFnet
NSFNet
The National Science Foundation Network was a program of coordinated, evolving projects sponsored by the National Science Foundation beginning in 1985 to promote advanced research and education networking in the United States...
, one of the significant predecessors of today's Internet. When the NSF revised its funding of supercomputer centers in 1997, Smarr became director of the National Computational Science Alliance, linking dozens of universities and research labs with NCSA to prototype the concept of grid computing
Grid computing
Grid computing is a term referring to the combination of computer resources from multiple administrative domains to reach a common goal. The grid can be thought of as a distributed system with non-interactive workloads that involve a large number of files...
.
In 2000, Smarr moved to California and proposed the creation of the California Institute for Telecommunications and Information Technology
Calit2
The California Institute for Telecommunications and Information Technology is an academic research institution jointly run by the University of California, San Diego and University of California, Irvine ....
(Calit2), linking departments and researchers at UCSD and UC Irvine
University of California, Irvine
The University of California, Irvine , founded in 1965, is one of the ten campuses of the University of California, located in Irvine, California, USA...
. Smarr currently serves as Institute Director of Calit2. As part of the work of Calit2, he is Principal Investigator on the NSF OptIPuter LambdaGrid project, an "optical backplane for planetary scale distributed computing".
He attended the Beyond Belief
Beyond Belief: Science, Religion, Reason and Survival
Beyond Belief: Science, Religion, Reason and Survival, the first of The Science Network's annual Beyond Belief symposia, held from November 5 to November 7, 2006, was described by the New York Times, as "a free-for-all on science and religion," which seemed at times like "the founding convention...
symposium on November 2006 and presented at the 2010 Life Extension Conference.
Recognition
Smarr has received numerous honors and awards, including:- Member of the National Academy of EngineeringNational Academy of EngineeringThe National Academy of Engineering is a government-created non-profit institution in the United States, that was founded in 1964 under the same congressional act that led to the founding of the National Academy of Sciences...
- Fellow of the American Physical SocietyAmerican Physical SocietyThe American Physical Society is the world's second largest organization of physicists, behind the Deutsche Physikalische Gesellschaft. The Society publishes more than a dozen scientific journals, including the world renowned Physical Review and Physical Review Letters, and organizes more than 20...
- Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and SciencesAmerican Academy of Arts and SciencesThe American Academy of Arts and Sciences is an independent policy research center that conducts multidisciplinary studies of complex and emerging problems. The Academy’s elected members are leaders in the academic disciplines, the arts, business, and public affairs.James Bowdoin, John Adams, and...
- Franklin InstituteFranklin InstituteThe Franklin Institute is a museum in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and one of the oldest centers of science education and development in the United States, dating to 1824. The Institute also houses the Benjamin Franklin National Memorial.-History:On February 5, 1824, Samuel Vaughn Merrick and...
's Delmer S. Fahrney Medal for Leadership in Science or Technology (1990)
In 2005, Smarr was awarded the Telluride Tech Festival Award of Technology in Telluride, Colorado.
- Recognized as a member of the San Diego Science Festival's Nifty Fifty, a collection of the most influential scientists in the San Diego area.
Publications
A few of Smarr's publications are:- William J. Kaufmann III, Larry L. Smarr. Supercomputing and the Transformation of Science, Scientific American Library, W. H. Freeman and Company, 1993. ISBN 0-7167-5038-4.
- "Grids in Context" in The Grid: A Blueprint for the New Computing Infrastructure, 2nd Edition, Ian Foster and Carl Kesselman, eds., Morgan Kaufmann, 2003.
- Members of the President’s Information Technology Advisory Committee. Information Technology Research: Investing in Our Future, a Report to the President of the United States, 1999.
- "Extraterrestrial Computing: Exploring the Universe with a Supercomputer". Chapter 8 of Very large Scale Computation in the 21st Century, Jill P. Mesirov, ed., Society for Industrial and Applied MathematicsSociety for Industrial and Applied MathematicsThe Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics was founded by a small group of mathematicians from academia and industry who met in Philadelphia in 1951 to start an organization whose members would meet periodically to exchange ideas about the uses of mathematics in industry. This meeting led...
(SIAM), 1991. - Charlie CatlettCharlie CatlettCharlie Catlett is a Senior Computer Scientist at Argonne National Laboratory and a Senior Fellow in the , a joint institute of Argonne National Laboratory and The University of Chicago. From 2007-2011 he was Chief Information Officer and director of the Computing and Information Systems Division...
, Larry Smarr. "Metacomputing", Communications of the ACM, vol. 35, no. 6, June 1992. - Larry Smarr. "How Supercomputers are Transforming Science," Encyclopædia Britannica Yearbook, 1991.