Wednesday, November 20
8:30-9:15am
Ballroom

Raymond L. Orbach
Director, Office of Science, U.S. Department of Energy

Title: High End Computation and Scientific Discovery
Abstract:
Ultra-Scale scientific computation adds a third pillar for scientific discovery to those of experiment and theory. Simulations generate insight into the laws of nature for systems too complex for direct calculation observation, or in circumstances where descriptive laws are absent. The required high-sustained speeds lead to a new environment. Rather than simply scaling up existing machines computer systems, communities with common computational interests will join together with applied mathematicians, computer scientists, and chip and interconnect manufacturers to tailor machines to scientific problems. The scale of operation will require large blocks of time on massive computational structures systems or platforms, changing the nature of interaction to resemble that of high energy physics: groups of users with common purpose joining together to work in large teams. This new environment will be driven by the promise of discovery in regions of enormous interest and importance.

Biography:
Dr. Raymond L. Orbach was sworn in as the 14th Director of the Office of Science at the Department of Energy (DOE) on March 14, 2002. As Director of the Office of Science (SC), Dr. Orbach manages an organization that is the third largest Federal sponsor of basic research in the United States and is viewed as one of the premier science organizations in the world. The SC fiscal year 2002 budget of $3.3 billion funds programs in high energy and nuclear physics, basic energy sciences, magnetic fusion energy, biological and environmental research, and computational science. SC, formerly the Office of Energy Research, also provides management oversight of the Chicago and Oak Ridge Operations Offices, the Berkeley and Stanford Site Offices, and 10 DOE non-weapons laboratories.

Prior to his appointment, Dr. Orbach served as Chancellor of the University of California (UC), Riverside from April 1992 through March 2002; he now holds the title Chancellor Emeritus. Dr. Orbach began his academic career as a postdoctoral fellow at Oxford University in 1960 and became an assistant professor of applied physics at Harvard University in 1961. He joined the faculty of the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) two years later as an associate professor, and became a full professor in 1966. From 1982 to 1992, he served as the Provost of the College of Letters and Science at UCLA. Dr. Orbach has also held numerous visiting professorships at universities around the world. These include the Catholic University of Leuven in Belgium, Tel Aviv University, and the Imperial College of Science and Technology in London. He also serves as a member of 20 scientific, professional, or civic boards.

Dr. Orbach's research in theoretical and experimental physics has resulted in the publication of more than 240 scientific articles. He has received numerous honors as a scholar including two Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Fellowships, a National Science Foundation Senior Postdoctoral Fellowship, a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship, the Joliot Curie Professorship at the Ecole Superieure de Physique et Chimie Industrielle de la Ville de Paris, the Lorentz Professorship at the University of Leiden in the Netherlands, and the 1991-1992 Andrew Lawson Memorial Lecturer at UC Riverside. He is a fellow of the American Physical Society and the AAAS.

Dr. Orbach received his Bachelor of Science degree in Physics from the California Institute of Technology in 1956. He received his Ph.D. degree in Physics from the University of California, Berkeley, in 1960 and was elected to Phi Beta Kappa.