Applications Consultant
Tel +44 (0)131 650 5201
Fax +44 (0)131 650 6555
Since 2008, Iain has worked as an Applications Consultant at EPCC, specialising in performance analysis and optimization of HPC applications. He collaborates with a range of researchers around the UK and Europe in fields ranging from Materials Science to Biomechanical Engineering. He develops scalable software to allow researchers to harness HPC resources such as HECToR – the UK National Service – and the European PRACE infrastructure. Most of his work has been in the area of Materials Science, and he is a developer on the CP2K[1] project – a powerful program enabling Density Functional Theory and other atomistic modelling techniques to be applied a diverse range of systems using tens of thousands of CPU cores at a time.
Iain has a wide-ranging interest in high performance computing architectures[2] and programming models including MPI, OpenMP, CUDA and OpenCL. He teaches several classes on EPCC’s MSc in HPC on Numerical Algorithms, Performance Optimisation, and organises the ‘HPC Ecosystem’ course, which looks at how applications developers, HPC vendors and users are collaborating to tackle the upcoming challenge of Exascale computing.
Believing that outreach to the public about scientific research is an important part of science itself, Iain is a developer for the PrimeGrid[3] volunteer computing project, which promotes mass participation in the solution of mathematical problems, as well as finding very large – million digit – prime numbers.
Prior to joining EPCC, Iain earned a First Class BSc.(Hons) in Computer Science & Physics from Edinburgh University in 2005 before spending two and a half years working for IBM on SAN storage virtualization.
In his limited spare time, Iain enjoys white water kayaking, hill walking and is an avid space exploration and research enthusiast.
[1] CP2K Website www.cp2k.org
[2] Gray, Bethune et al, Comp. Phys. Comm., Vol 183, Issue 3, March 2012, 520-529, dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cpc.2011.11.013
[3] PrimeGrid Website www.primegrid.com