Core Team Members
Cecelia DeLuca is the manager of the ESMF Core Team and the Head of the Earth System Modeling Infrastructure Section at NCAR. She is interested in the development of large, high-performance software systems for the Earth sciences, and the organization and governance of community software projects. Cecelia has been studying piano with her daughter for the last three years, and can play The Happy Farmer merrily.
Silverio Vasquez has been the ESMF tester/integrator since June 2002. He currently maintains scripts that regression test the ESMF daily on over 20 platform/compiler configurations. Prior to joining NCAR Silverio wrote and tested realtime embedded software for AT&T/Lucent Technologies. He currently holds five telecommunications-related patents.
Dr. Gerhard Theurich joined ESMF as developer in 2003. He is working on the low level execution engine and resource abstraction, communication methods, and mid-level distributed data classes. During his previous research activities he authored and co-authored a number of electronic structure and quantum chemistry applications. He claims Z80 assembler as his second language and can't wait for his children to pick up on it. In the meantime he enjoys the many other aspects of family life both indoor and outdoor.
Dr. Peggy Li is a NASA JPL staff member who works half-time with the ESMF project, optimizing framework performance. She has led several R&D tasks in the parallel and distributed computing area at JPL, including a remote interactive visualization and analysis (RIVA) system for planetary data visualization, a parallel volume rendering system (ParVox), and the OurOcean portal, which serves near real-time ocean data from NASA satellites and in situ observations. Her research interests are in parallel programming, distributed systems, parallel rendering and scientific visualization.
Sylvia Murphy is technical project manager for the Earth System Curator project. Curator seeks to collaboratively develops software infrastructure to support end-to-end modeling in the Earth sciences and span the gaps between modeling and data services. Sylvia has a background in geoscience modeling, management, programming, and web technologies. On the side, she is the deputy commander of the 169th Fires Bridgade, a unit in the Colorado Army National Guard, and an outdoor leader for the Sierra Club. Sylvia's passions are hiking and photography.
Dr. Robert Oehmke is a computer scientist whose previous experience includes building an AMR library used in a space weather modeling framework (SWMF) and several atmospheric modeling codes. His current research interests include high performance data structures (particularly adaptive ones), petascale application scalability, and spatial search algorithms. Bob is currently working on the ESMF grid and other high level classes in addition to helping develop some of the algorithms (e.g. point search) in the system. In his free time, Bob enjoys spending time with his family, taking care of his dogs, reading, cooking, gardening, and exploring his new home state.
Dr. Fei Liu graduated from Johns Hopkins University with training in planetary science, computer science, and writing. He has worked on the GFDL Flexible Modeling System (FMS) in the areas of model construction, build, test, and performance optimization. Dr. Liu played an important role in porting the GFDL atmospheric model from MIPSpro to IA32 and Itanium2 platforms. He also worked for a private company making network security appliances, dealing with various issues of Unix system programming, software scalability, and internet security. Dr. Liu is interested in philosophy, mathematics, physics, and computing. He loves playing soccer with his friends during the weekend.
Ryan O'Kuinghttons started working with ESMF in 2007 as an intern in the NCAR Summer Internships in Parallel Computational Science (SIParCS) program. His work with ESMF concentrates on the consistent incorporation of user metadata. He finished his master's degree in mathematics at the Colorado School of Mines. His thesis work included high order numerical methods for the shallow water equations using radial basis functions. His time off is spent doing those things which require concentrated non-thought: climbing, skiing, reading, and relaxing.
Walter Spector is a software engineer who has been working with ESMF since December 2007. Walter specializes in code porting issues, system interface issues, parallel processing, and performance tuning. In his off-hours, Walter attempts to keep his old cars running, keep his old house from falling in, and helps lead his son's boy scout troop. He is also an avid reader of computer science textbooks, an amateur radio operator, and involved in a retrocomputing project to emulate old Control Data Corporation mainframes on modern PCs.
Kathy Saint is a software engineer who has been working with ESMF since October 2008. She has worked on several large information systems, working with everything from databases to user interfaces, and everything in between. Most recently, Kathy's developed several message passing systems designed to interface control interfaces with graphical Reality Centers. In her spare time, Kathy enjoys playing amateur photographer/videographer, working on the landscaping around her house, and playing first base on her softball team.
Samson Cheung studied Applied Mathematics at UC Davis and worked on aircraft platform design and in the field of computational fluid dynamics. Since year 1997 he changed his interest to High Performance Computing, and worked at private companies and NASA to optimize application performance before joining ESMF. Samson is currently working on the ESMF IO and other high level classes. Samson is also interested in I-Ching, ancient philosophy, photography, and plastic model making.
