ECP Selects DOD’s Frances (Fran) Hill as Co-Chair of Its Industry and Agency Council

Frances (Fran) Hill, co-chair of the Exascale Computing Project Industry and Agency Council

The Exascale Computing Project (ECP) has announced the selection of Dr. Frances (Fran) Hill as co-chair of the ECP Industry and Agency Council (IAC).

Hill currently serves as chief scientist for the High Performance Computing Modernization Program (HPCMP) with the US Department of Defense (DOD). She will assume the role of ECP-IAC co-chair alongside Dave Kepczynski, who has been serving as the Council chair since April 2018.

The IAC is a body of selected US companies and US federal government agency representatives charged with providing input and feedback to the ECP director and leadership team on project scope and requirements, technical approaches and progress, technology outreach and adoption, and strategic directions.

The ECP recently expanded its external advisory group to include selected federal agency representation. The new agency members—representing DOD HPCMP, NASA, the National Institutes of Health, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and the National Science Foundation—join a group of executives from some of the nation’s most prominent industry leaders who are interested in exploring the potential of exascale computing.

“The ECP-IAC serves an extremely important role for the ECP and for the US Department of Energy (DOE), providing essential two-way communication and information exchange between the ECP, key US federal agencies, and US industry relevant to the use and development of high-performance computing (HPC) applications and software,” said Doug Kothe, ECP director.

“With the recent addition of federal agency stakeholders to this external advisory group, we want to ensure our council members have strong representation and leadership from their respective communities. We are thrilled to have Dr. Hill join the council as co-chair. Her decades of experience leading HPC efforts within government agencies will be invaluable to the success of our mission, ensuring the advancements in applications and software technology delivered by the ECP will ultimately have tremendous impact on the HPC infrastructure of this nation.”

The ECP is a collaborative multi-lab effort led by six DOE national laboratories with the project management office established at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. The ECP is focused on accelerating the delivery of a capable exascale computing ecosystem to provide breakthrough solutions that can address the nation’s most critical challenges in scientific discovery, energy assurance, economic competitiveness, and national security. The project is a joint effort of two DOE organizations: the Office of Science and the National Nuclear Security Administration.