April 2013

Where are you from, originally?

I was born in and grew up in Romania. I moved to the US after finishing my undergraduate studies in Bucharest.

Can you summarize your educational background?

I received a Bachelor of Science degree in Computer Science from the “Politehnica” Univeristy of Bucharest in 1998. During the following year I took my GRE and TOEFL exams and I applied for several graduate programs in the US. In the fall of 1999 I moved to Houston to start my graduate studies at Rice University. At Rice, I initially joined the Systems group in the Computer Science Department, where I worked briefly on scheduling policies for web servers while also taking classes. In 2001, I joined the Parallel Compilers group, where I worked with Prof. John Mellor-Crummey on performance analysis tools, and on cross-architecture performance modeling techniques. I received an MSc degree in May 2003, and a PhD degree in Janury 2008, both from Rice.

Where did you work before joining ICL?

In the year after completing my undergraduate degree and before starting my graduate studies in the US, I worked as a software enginner at the Mediafax news agency in Bucharest, and as a Laboratory instructor at my alma mater university. After finishing my PhD, I continued my work on performance modeling as a post-doctoral research associate at Rice University until April 2009. At that time I moved to Knoxville and I joined the Oak Ridge National Laboratory as a Research Staff member. In February 2013, I accepted a positon at ICL.

Tell us how you first learned about ICL.

I met Jack for the first time in 2004, during an all-hands meeting for the GrADS project, a meeting that took place in Knoxville. At that time I did not really know anything about ICL, or that I would eventually accept a position here. Later, in 2007 and 2008, I interacted with Shirley and Heike as part of application engagement activities for the PERI project. I became more familiar with ICL in 2009, after I started working at ORNL, when we collaborated on the Blackjack project.

What made you want to work for ICL?

My work has revolved around high performance computing since I was a graduate student. After working for three and a half years at ORNL, I felt that a research position in an academic environment would be better suited for me. ICL’s work on linear algebra and software packages, such as PAPI, is well known in the HPC community. Therefore, when Dan informed me of an open position with the performance group at ICL, I was happy to take advantage of this opportunity.

What are your interests/hobbies outside work?

I like East Tennessee particularly for its beautiful landscapes. I like to go hiking in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park when I have free time. I would like to eventually hike all 800 or so miles of maintained trails in the park. In addition to enjoying the nature, one can still find traces of old settler homesites, old cemeteries, and old firetowers, in many places in the park, sometimes off the beaten path.

Tell us something about yourself that might surprise people.

I used to do competitive figure skating in my youth, and I won several national-level competitions at my age group. Hopefully, it surprises at least some people.

What will you be working on while at ICL?

While at ICL, I will be working with the performance group. My work is focused primarily on developing techniques and tools for performance and power modeling, and on performance diagnosis.

If you weren’t working at ICL, where would you like to be working and why?

I do not have a favorite place where I would like to work. To answer this question from a different perspective, I think that any future major technical breakthroughs will come from new advances in physics, chemistry, or material sciences. So, I would like for my work, be it at ICL or somewhere else, to contribute even a little to future advances in physical sciences.