[Congressional Record Volume 164, Number 29 (Wednesday, February 14, 2018)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E184]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]





              PITTSBURGH SUPERCOMPUTING CENTER RETIREMENTS

                                 ______
                                 

                         HON. MICHAEL F. DOYLE

                            of pennsylvania

                    in the house of representatives

                      Wednesday, February 14, 2018

  Mr. MICHAEL F. DOYLE of Pennsylvania. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to 
note a major milestone in the life of the Pittsburgh Supercomputing 
Center, a federally supported research facility in southwestern 
Pennsylvania. Three people responsible for founding and building the 
Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center are retiring after many years of 
stellar leadership there.
  The Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center, an institution established and 
managed by Carnegie Mellon University and the University of Pittsburgh, 
provides both public and private-sector researchers nationwide with 
access to high-performance computers for unclassified research. The 
Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center is also a leading partner in the 
Extreme Science and Engineering Discovery Environment, the National 
Science Foundation's cyber-infrastructure program.
  The Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center was founded in 1986 by two 
physicists, Michael Levine from Carnegie Mellon University and Ralph 
Roskies from the University of Pittsburgh, along with Jim Kasdorf, the 
Manager of Engineering Computer Services at Westinghouse. They believed 
that the Pittsburgh region needed a national high-performance computing 
center run by and for researchers.
  Working with leading-edge suppliers, co-directors Levine and Roskies 
attracted and fostered a team that has designed and built highly 
advanced and productive high-performance computing systems. Back in 
1986, Jim Kasdorf was the Manager for Engineering Computer Services at 
Westinghouse, where he was responsible for everything--planning, 
computer acquisition, systems programming, day-to-day operations, and 
user support. Despite those demands, he also took on spearheading 
Westinghouse's support for the new facility. Jim eventually joined the 
Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center as Director of Special Projects, where 
he assisted with ongoing funding opportunities and technology 
developments.
  The Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center rapidly earned a reputation for 
acquiring, installing, and deploying systems that were ``serial number 
1'' or ``serial number 2'' and/or the first to ship to a customer, 
making it a highly productive research leader. As a result, each new 
system enabled a new generation of research to be conducted:
  In 1987, Levine and Roskies established a biomedical group that 
created a unique resource for exploring the subcellular structure of 
the nervous system and also developed unique capabilities in the 
growing field of bioinformatics and spawned formal graduate and 
undergraduate programs across the country.
  In the 1990s, Roskies personally made arrangements for time to be set 
aside on the center's Cray C90 for tornado prediction efforts that led 
to today's tornado predictions--the first time a supercomputing center 
had dedicated time to a single application for such societally 
important, time-sensitive work.
  In 2001, the Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center's Terascale Computing 
System ranked number 2 on the Top 500 list of the world's most powerful 
computing systems.
  In 2010, the Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center formed an 
internationally respected Public Health Applications Group.
  Today, the Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center's systems have 
increasingly focused on Big Data analytics, empowering a new generation 
of research in artificial intelligence, the life sciences, the social 
sciences, and the digital humanities.
  The retirement of these three pioneers from their leadership posts at 
the Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center offers an occasion for reflecting 
on their role in furthering the science of high-performance computing, 
expanding STEM and economic opportunities in the Commonwealth of 
Pennsylvania and contributing to the region's expanding role as a hot-
spot for computing innovation.
  The Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center's work has had a profound impact 
on the Western Pennsylvania region and the Commonwealth as a whole. The 
Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center has established a tradition of using 
the latest information technologies for the advancement of research, 
education and corporate competitiveness in the region and the state. 
The Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center's culture of encouraging 
innovation and entrepreneurial activity enabled the creation of the 
Three Rivers Optical Exchange, which today provides high-bandwidth 
research networking and/or low-cost commodity Internet to a growing 
list of institutions in the region and the Commonwealth of 
Pennsylvania, including universities, research facilities and high 
schools.
  To help build the region's STEM workforce, the Pittsburgh 
Supercomputing Center offers educational programs for students and 
teachers at the K-20 level. Open education resource materials 
(available on the Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center website at 
www.psc.edu) are offered online as well as by many of these programs. 
The Bioinformatics Education for program STudents exposes teachers to 
modem molecular biology concepts by incorporating computational biology 
and bioinformatics into high school curricula. The Bioinformatics 
Education for program STudents curriculum has been adopted at 15 
regional high schools.
  In economic impact, the Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center has brought 
over $500 million in outside funds into Pennsylvania, empowering high-
performance computing-driven research findings at Carnegie Mellon and 
Pitt, as well as many of the region's other universities. The 
Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center has been responsible for generating 
1,600 jobs and over $200 million in annual economic activity. The 
Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center's impact also includes helping to meet 
the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania's need for a growing STEM workforce.
  In addition to supporting the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the 
Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center has put the state ``on the map'' in 
the high-performance computing community. The Pittsburgh Supercomputing 
Center has innovated high-performance computing software and 
architecture that has helped drive research around the world. The 
Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center's work in networking has helped 
provide the critical connections that enable researchers to make 
productive use of powerful resources that their individual institutions 
would never be able to afford. Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center 
software researchers have created a family of open-source tools that 
are helping to power Big Data analytics on a similar scale. Its 
biomedical and Public Health groups are fueling the fine-scale 
exploration of brain structure and revolutionizing public health 
efforts by optimizing medical supply delivery and revealing how 
offering people more options can encourage vaccination. And its 
championing of the creation of supercomputers tailored to new 
communities of researchers with Big Data needs--typified by the new 
Bridges system, which has set new standards for accessibility to 
researchers without supercomputing experience--have supercharged 
research efforts in fields that never before used high-performance 
computing.
  This innovative approach to high-performance computing has touched 
scientists, engineers, and humanities researchers across the country 
and the world. In collaborations such as the Extreme Science and 
Engineering Discovery Environment, the National Science Foundation's 
network of supercomputing centers, the Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center 
has played a leading role, providing computational, storage, and human 
resources that continue to power research projects coast to coast. The 
result has been a host of tremendous scientific advances made possible 
by its high-performance computing systems.
  In the educational sphere, the Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center's 
NIH-funded Minority Access to Research Careers bioinformatics program 
helped 12 minority-serving institutions across the country institute 
classes or full curriculums in bioinformatics, preparing their students 
for 21st-century life sciences careers; the Minority Access to Research 
Careers program's summer institute offered summer recess projects to 
undergraduate and graduate students at these institutions as well.
  Levine and Roskies created an environment for innovation at each 
stage: assembling the team that won the first National Science 
Foundation award; hiring key people with unique skills; and then 
empowering them to make innovative contributions. Their 31 years of 
service in leading the Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center fostered a 
community of scientific and computing researchers that enable 
scientific discovery by re-thinking the architecture and software of 
the systems they make available.
  I want to commend Dr. Levine, Dr. Roskies, and Mr. Kasdorf for their 
more than 30 years of important contributions to science and the 
economy of Southwestern Pennsylvania. I want to congratulate them on a 
well-earned retirement and wish them the best in the years ahead.

                          ____________________