I am a graduate student (doctoral candidate) in the Computer Science and Engineering Department of the University of California, San Diego. [Curriculum Vitae (pdf)]
I am currently working at SDSC in the Performance Modeling and Characterization Lab (PMaC), investigating economic models of scheduling on high performance computing systems.
My dissertation abstract is as follows:
Effective management of Grid and HPC resources is essential to maximizing return on the substantial infrastructure investment these resources entail. An important prerequisite to effective resource management is productive interaction between the user and scheduler. My work analyzes several aspects of the user-scheduler relationship and develops solutions to three of the most vexing barriers between the two. First, users' monetary valuation of compute time and schedule turnaround time is examined in terms of a utility function. Second, responsiveness of the scheduler to users' varied valuations is optimized via a genetic algorithm heuristic, creating a controlled market for computation. Finally, the chronic problem of inaccurate user runtime requests, and its implications for scheduler performance, is examined, along with mitigation techniques.
Selected publications:
My SC'07 Doctoral Showcase presentation sides are here (November 2007).
11/16/06: Spoke in a BOF seession of Supercomputing Conference SC06 (slides here), about utility functions that show users' valuation of their supercomputer batch jobs as a function of turnaround time (queue wait time, plus execution time).
Project for Joseph Goguen's
CSE 271:
User Interface Design: Social and Technical Issues (Spring 2003). An application
of semiotics, conceptual integration theory (Blend theory), and algebraic
semiotics to the analysis of cartoons.
Project for Stephan Savage's CSE 222A: Computer Communication
Networks (Winter 2003). A characterization of background port scan activity
on the Internet.
Project for Scott Baden's CSE 260: Parallel Computation (Fall 2002). "A Parallel Simulation of Traffic"
Project in data structures and information retrieval (a little flashback to sophomore year of undergrad)
Group photo with PMaC lab undergraduate summer students (summer 2003).
