The Texas Advanced Computing Center (TACC) at The University of Texas at Austin today announced the creation of the TACC Board of Visitors to advise the center and to identify new opportunities in advanced computational research and development.

Since TACC’s inception in June 2001, the center has grown in resources, awards, and impact to become one of the leading advanced computing centers in the nation. TACC’s success in deploying comprehensive, world-class technologies for use by the open science research community has fueled this growth, while the center’s research and development programs have enhanced its ability to enable high-impact computational research.

The TACC Board of Visitors has eight charter members who have been appointed to a two-year term with the option of reappointment at the end of each term:

• Charlie Catlett, chief information officer, Argonne National Laboratory.
• Elaine Kant, chief executive officer, SciComp Inc.
• Pike Powers, attorney at law and civic entrepreneur, Fulbright & Jaworski.
• Daniel Reed, corporate vice president for the Extreme Computing Group, Microsoft Research.
• Mark Seager, systems expert, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.
• Peter R. Taylor, professor of chemistry and chief scientist, Centre for Scientific Computing, The University of Warwick. 
• Patricia J. Teller, computer science professor, The University of Texas at El Paso.
• John N. Weinstein, chair, Department of Bioinformatics and Computational Biology, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center.

According to TACC Director Jay Boisseau, the impact of advanced computing technologies is on the rise presenting real results in diverse aspects of society.

“It’s no longer the case that advanced computing technologies are niche technologies used scientific research. They’re being used now by professionals across all sectors including engineers of all types, financial analysts, and medical drug developers,” Boisseau said, “and we’re seeing these and other sectors in a rapid ascendance of their use of advanced computing technologies.”

"As a member of the Austin scientific computing community, I'm honored to be invited to join the distinguished board of visitors of TACC," said Elaine Kant, president of SciComp Inc. "SciComp has developed parallel computing solutions for the financial services marketplace, and we know well the challenges of parallel and distributed computing. I look forward to working with TACC to leverage the power of advanced computing across science and society."

The advisory board will meet twice a year—once in Austin, and once at the annual Supercomputing conference. The first meeting of the TACC Board of Visitors will take place this November.

Said Daniel Reed, Microsoft’s corporate vice president for the Extreme Computing Group, “High-performance computing is transforming scientific and engineering research, and I am delighted to be a part of TACC’s vision for the future of computational science.”