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Betsy Sonewald

Betsy Sonewald is a science writer and communications specialist in the National Center for Computational Sciences division. She highlights news and accomplishments from across the division and its programs.

Arjun Shankar ORNLFeaturedPeople

Meet the NCCS and OLCF Director: Arjun Shankar

World-leading supercomputers, like those built and deployed at the Oak Ridge Leadership Computing Facility at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, are astonishing feats of computational and infrastructural engineering. But behind the cables, wires and racks is the hard work of hundreds of individuals committed to a mission bigger than themselves. Arjun…
Betsy Sonewald
May 14, 2024
Science

New Data Processing Automation Grows Plant Science at ORNL

At the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory, scientists studying plant characteristics have access to sophisticated robotic imaging tools and sensors at the Advanced Plant Phenotyping Laboratory, or APPL. This greenhouse-like lab offers one of the most diverse suites of imaging capabilities for plant phenotyping worldwide, letting scientists quickly…
Betsy Sonewald
April 15, 2024
Long shot photo of the front of the HPE Cray EX Frontier supercomputer showing the logo and electrical boxes above the system.Science

ORNL collaboration helps secure 2023 Gordon Bell Prizes

In 2023, from the Science Engagement section in the National Center for Computational Sciences at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory were recognized as part of the two teams who would go on to win the Association for Computing Machinery’s Gordon Bell Prize and the Gordon Bell Prize…
Betsy Sonewald
April 15, 2024
Science

ESnet Turns On 400G Circuits to Four DOE National Labs, Supercharging Multi-Site Scientific Research

By Bonnie Powell, ESnet Today’s world-changing scientific research is being conducted by collaborators at far-flung national laboratories who require high-speed, low-latency access to high performance computing facilities and specialized instruments. The Energy Sciences Network (ESnet) is proud to announce that it has supercharged the current and future bandwidth for four…
Betsy Sonewald
October 30, 2023
Technology

Exascale Day 2023

On October 18, the US Department of Energy's (DOE's) Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) is celebrating the fifth National Exascale Day. The holiday was created in 2019 as an initiative of DOE's Exascale Computing Project (ECP) and Cray, a Hewlett Packard Enterprise Company, to honor scientists and researchers who will…
Betsy Sonewald
October 16, 2023
Science

DOE’s First ‘Intro to HPC’ Bootcamp Focuses on Energy Justice and a New Model for Workforce Development

By Kathy Kincade, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory Energy justice and workforce development were the driving themes of the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) first “Introduction to High-Performance Computing (HPC) Bootcamp,” held at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) August 7-11 and hosted by the National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center…
Betsy Sonewald
September 25, 2023
Science

OLCF Launches New Allocation Program, SummitPLUS

The Oak Ridge Leadership Computing Facility, a Department of Energy Office of Science user facility at DOE’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory, is pleased to announce a new allocation program for computing time on the IBM AC922 Summit supercomputer. The program, called SummitPLUS, will provide allocations to computationally ready projects and…
Betsy Sonewald
September 22, 2023
Trees and a green lawn in front of a brick and glass building.EventsScience

OLCF to Host 19th Annual User Meeting in October

The Oak Ridge Leadership Computing Facility, a Department of Energy Office of Science user facility at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, will host its 19th annual user meeting on October 17-18, 2023. For the first time in three years, the meeting will have in-person attendance at ORNL. Attendees may also register…
Betsy Sonewald
September 6, 2023
Science

College students Have a Blast with ORNL During Virtual High-Performance Computing Competition 

Staff from the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory returned this year to mentor students in the 2023 Winter Classic Invitational Student Cluster Competition. The virtual event invites student teams from historically Black colleges and universities and minority-serving institutions to take on high-performance computing challenges from mentor organizations. This…
Betsy Sonewald
July 25, 2023
Technology

UnifyFS Team Wins IPDPS Award for Open-Source Software

A research team from the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge and Lawrence Livermore national laboratories won the first Best Open-Source Contribution Award for its paper at the 37th IEEE International Parallel and Distributed Processing Symposium, or IPDPS, which was held in St. Petersburg, Florida, on May 15-19. The paper, “UnifyFS:…
Betsy Sonewald
June 30, 2023
People

LLNL’s Diachin Takes Helm of DOE’s Exascale Computing Project

By Jeremy Thomas, LLNL Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory’s Lori Diachin will take over as director of the Department of Energy’s Exascale Computing Project on June 1, guiding the successful, multi-institutional high-performance computing effort through its final stages. Diachin, who is currently the principal deputy associate director for LLNL’s Computing Directorate, has served…
Betsy Sonewald
June 1, 2023
Science

Autocoding Cancer

An algorithm developed by the US Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) in partnership with the National Cancer Institute (NCI) is speeding up classification, or coding, of cancer pathology reports. The early results from the Cancer Moonshot program show that the algorithm dramatically reduces the time it…
Betsy Sonewald
February 10, 2023
A group of students and an ORNL staff member stand in front of the Frontier supercomputer at ORNL.Science

Supercomputers Lead to Super Learning Experiences

The Pathways to Computing Internship Program is accepting applications for 2023. For information on the program or to apply, visit https://education.ornl.gov/pathways/. Summer at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) is usually a bustling, busy time as hundreds of students arrive to begin an internship program, working alongside engineers, scientists, and researchers to…
Betsy Sonewald
December 6, 2022
Science

The Climate in a Container

Successfully running a simulation program on a supercomputer requires more than just writing code. An application such as a climate model requires libraries, network support, and the correct operating environment. Because of these complex and multilayered requirements, applications are typically customized and built natively on a computing system, making them…
Betsy Sonewald
December 5, 2022
PeopleTechnology

Data Transfer Tool Makes New Connections at ORNL

Data is the fuel that propels scientific research, and fortunately for scientists, there is no shortage of data in the modern world—a single scientific instrument can produce terabytes of data. However, just as important as collecting the data is being able to access it and analyze it. For researchers at…
Betsy Sonewald
December 2, 2022