Innovators Newsletter

MESSAGE from the DIRECTOR

Published June 2025

Dear SDSC Collaborators, Partners and All Friends:

As the summer season approaches, I have been reflecting on the incredible momentum we have built over the first half of the year. I’m especially proud of how our team continues to bring SDSC’s commitment to translational research to life — we are a national leader in driving cutting-edge science that delivers meaningful societal impact.

One of the latest examples of this is our new Societal Computing and Innovation Lab (SCIL), which launched last month and houses the renowned WIFIRE program. Created by our Chief Data Science Officer and CICORE Director Ilkay Altintas, SCIL was developed to drive innovation around society’s most pressing problems — leveraging the forefront of science and technology to deliver scalable solutions to complex challenges. SCIL created a methodological foundation built on lessons learned and composable system innovations from nearly two decades of use-inspired research in areas like wildfires, precision medicine and natural disaster mitigation that can now be applied to a wide range of society’s most pressing problems. You can read more about this new resource at SDSC in the News Highlights section below.

As an example of our presence on the international stage, Christine Kirkpatrick, who leads Research Data Services at SDSC, served as a panelist during the AI Compute Summit in Copenhagen, Denmark, where she discussed, among other topics, the energy needed for AI. More about this speaking engagement can be found in the Around SDSC section of this newsletter. 

In the Researcher Spotlight section of this newsletter, you can read about SDSC’s recipient of the 2025 Pi Person of the Year Award. Amarnath Gupta, a computer scientist by training, is a senior research scientist within the CICORE Division. Gupta specializes in information systems and has generated more than 100 publications and four issued patents. Please read more about his impact at the nexus of science and cyberinfrastructure.

I also want to note the major milestone that the leader of our Stack Science Division, Sandeep Chandra, and his team accomplished recently. Sherlock, a specialized IT services provider housed within Stack Science, successfully completed a SOC 2, Type 2 audit, which assesses how a cloud-based service provider manages sensitive information. The team’s wide-reaching collaboration effort resulted in Sherlock’s successful meeting of all the assessment criteria, demonstrating its commitment to data protection and operational integrity. Details about this impressive feat can be found in the Around SDSC section below.

One last but not least commendation before I sign off, Mary Thomas, a computational data scientist at SDSC, participated in a multi-institutional HPC education effort that resulted in a new cyber training catalog designed to make cyber training resources more accessible and easier to share. This type of effort demonstrates our commitment to supporting the development of both the current and future technology workforce. Read more about this effort under Researcher Spotlight.

As usual, our Innovators newsletter remains a staple for highlighting our most recent accomplishments. We appreciate sharing this news and information with you, and we are grateful for your continued interest. Until the next edition (August 2025), enjoy a safe and restful summer.

Best wishes,
Frank Würthwein
SDSC Director