TACC at SC12

Student Cluster Competition

Header Image
The University of Texas team on the SC'12 exhibit floor after learning they won the overall competition. Standing (left to right): John Lockman (TACC), Reid Douglas McKenzie, Anant Rathi, Andrew Wiley, Michael Teng, Steve Sofhauser (Dell), John Cazes (TACC). Kneeling (left to right): Julian Michael, Craig Yeh. Not pictured: Carlos Rosales.

SC12 will again feature the Student Cluster Competition as an opportunity to showcase student expertise in a friendly yet spirited competition. Held in collaboration with the Communities Program, the Student Cluster Competition is designed to introduce the next generation of students to the high-performance computing community. Over the last couple years, the competition has drawn teams from around the world, including Europe and Canada, China, Costa Rica, Germany, Russia, and Taiwan. For more information, visit the official SC12 Student Cluster Competition page.

TACC Cluster Team Members:

Andrew Wiley

Year in School: Junior
Major/Minor: Computer Science and Electrical Engineering (dual)
Hometown: Friendswood, Texas
Number of Cluster Competitions: 2

Cluster Team Role:

  • Sysadmin tasks
  • General cluster setup
  • Building, running, and optimizing CAM and PFLOTRAN

Interesting fact:
Andrew first started programming when he taught himself C to work on a text-based RPG server.

Reid Douglas McKenzie

Year in School: Sophomore
Major/Minor: Computer Science
Hometown: Born in Summit NJ, family now resides in Austin TX
Number of Cluster Competitions: 1

Cluster Team Role:

  • Building and optimizing CAM
  • Graveyard shift man
  • Worked on the node load and power monitoring software

Interesting fact:
Reid builds replica helmets for fun, and will be writing Clojure for the majority of the contest.

Michael Teng

Year in School: Senior
Major/Minor: Computer Science
Hometown: Dallas, TX
Number of Cluster Competitions: 2

Cluster Team Role:

  • Optimize HPL and HPCC
  • The most graveyard of graveyard shifts

Interesting fact:
When ranking his least favorite questions, Michael lists sharing interesting facts about himself only slightly behind "What's your biggest weakness?"

Anant Rathi

Year in School: Senior
Major/Minor: Computer Science
Hometown: Austin, Texas
Number of Cluster Competitions: 1

Cluster Team Role:

  • Tuning High Performance LINPACK and LAMMPS

Interesting fact:
Anant and his elder brother share the same birthday.

Craig Yeh

Year in School: Junior
Major/Minor: Computer Science
Hometown: Dallas, TX
Number of Cluster Competitions: 2

Cluster Team Role:

  • Primarily LAMMPS and QMCPACK applications
  • A secondary sysadmin role

Interesting fact:
Craig earned his first $20 online at the age of 13 by performing simple WordPress modifications for someone.

Julian Michael

Year in School: Sophomore
Major/Minor: Computer Science, Physics
Hometown: Plano, TX
Number of Cluster Competitions: 1

Cluster Team Role:

  • Helped assemble cluster
  • Helped compile applications
  • Helped optimizing applications

Interesting fact:
Julian can kick his own head.