HPC Day
Overview
Join us for a full-day event from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Friday, September 26, 2025, that is dedicated to showcasing the power of High Performance Computing (HPC) in research and education. It’s a fantastic opportunity to connect with colleagues, learn new skills, and explore the cutting-edge work happening across campus and beyond.
Held in the Watt Family Innovation Center, this year’s event will feature:
- Insightful keynote sessions from leading experts.
- Hands-on workshops to build your computing skills.
- Opportunities to showcase your research in our Poster Session and Lightning Talks.
- Critical Discussions on the future of research computing and HPC in education.
- Valuable networking with researchers, industry partners, and HPC support staff.
This event is for all faculty, students (undergraduate and graduate), researchers, and staff interested in the field of high performance computing (HPC). Contact Carl Ehrett for more information.
Want to present your work? We are accepting submissions for posters and lightning talks through Friday, September 5.
Speakers
Timo Heister, Ph.D.
Professor, Clemson University Math Department
Dr. Heister is an applied mathematician in Clemson’s School of Mathematical & Statistical Sciences. His research centers on massively parallel adaptive finite-element methods and open-source HPC software, notably the deal.II library. He has led NSF-funded projects on geodynamics and scalable solver technology and regularly mentors students on Clemson’s Palmetto cluster. Timo Heister received the 2025 Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics (SIAM)/ Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) Prize in Computational Science and Engineering. The prize is a prestigious award given biennially to an individual or group that has made outstanding contributions to the development and use of mathematical and computational tools and methods for the solution of real-life science and engineering problems.
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Dan Stanzione, Ph.D.
Executive Director, Texas Advanced Computing Center (TACC)
A triple-Tiger alumnus (B.S. ’91 EE; M.S. ’93 & Ph.D. ’01 Computer Engineering, Clemson University), Dr. Stanzione oversees flagship NSF systems such as Frontera and the forthcoming Horizon. His 30-year career has focused on advancing open-science cyberinfrastructure and building HPC workforce pipelines nationwide.
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Frank Cappello, Ph.D.
Senior Computer Scientist, Argonne National Laboratory
Dr. Cappello leads R&D on resilience, data compression, and extreme-scale I/O at Argonne. A former CNRS/INRIA senior researcher, he founded the Grid’5000 test-bed and now heads data management efforts within the DOE Exascale Computing Project.
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Nathan DeBardeleben, Ph.D.
Senior Research Scientist, Los Alamos National Laboratory
Dr. DeBardeleben co-leads LANL’s Ultrascale Systems Research Center, co-leads LANL’s AI for Mission (ArtIMis) effort, and leads the AI portion of the Enabling Manufacturing effort. He earned B.S., M.S., and Ph.D. degrees in Computer Engineering from Clemson and has been at Los Alamos since 2004.
Amy Apon, Ph.D.
Professor of Computer Science, Clemson University
Dr. Apon’s research spans high performance computing, cloud computing, and cyberinfrastructure, with a focus on performance optimization and large-scale distributed systems. She previously directed Clemson’s School of Computing and founded the Arkansas High Performance Computing Center.
Sessions
Getting Started with Palmetto
Hands-on Workshop
A fast-paced onboarding session for new users of Clemson’s Palmetto 2 cluster. Attendees will practice SSH access, module management, Slurm job submission, and file transfer, leaving with a first batch job successfully run.
HPC in Education
Workshop and Roundtable
An open forum for faculty and instructional staff to exchange ideas on bringing HPC concepts into coursework, share teaching resources, and discuss common challenges such as scaling assignments and supporting diverse student backgrounds. Learn more from the ACM SIGHPC Education Chapter.
Panel Participants
- F. Alex Feltus (moderator), Genetics & Biochemistry
- Rong Ge, School of Computing
- Carlos Toxtli-Hernandez, Human Centered Computing
- Bing Li, CU-ICAR
- Dvora Perahia, Chemistry
- Todd Allen Price, Clemson MBA Program (Virtual Participant)
- Justin Talbot, Chemistry
- MinJae Woo, Public Health
- Non-presenting panelists: Jon Calhoun(ECE)
Careers in HPC
Panel Discussion
Leaders from academia, national labs, and industry will outline career paths in system architecture, scientific application development, data engineering, and research management, followed by an interactive Q&A to help attendees map their own trajectories.
