San Diego Supercomputer Center Launches Women in High Performance Computing Group

Published March 7, 2024

By Kimberly Mann Bruch, SDSC Communications

The San Diego Supercomputer Center (SDSC) at UC San Diego has announced a new initiative as an official affiliate with the Women in High Performance Computing (WHPC), a national organization aimed at supporting women engaged in the HPC community. The affiliation was founded by SDSC staff members Subha Sivagnanam and Claire Stirm.

“Subha and I originally thought about collaborating with WHPC as an affiliate after exploring ways SDSC can support Women in HPC students and professionals in the San Diego area,” Stirm said. “It has been a pleasure to see this opportunity come to life and the quick uptake from the women professionals at SDSC in support of the new WHPC@SDSC affiliate.”

“We are really looking forward to seeing this community group and the ways we can expand the community to the professionals and students in southern California,” Sivagnanam continued. “One of our goals is to promote the use of HPC among minority-serving and Hispanic-serving institutions – we will be discussing this specifically at our upcoming meeting in May.”

One of the first components of the group’s outreach efforts will encompass prospective UC San Diego members. “We’ve noted some opportunities on campus and will be further exploring these opportunities via our outreach working committee,” Stirm said.

Stirm and Sivagnanam said that the group welcomes interested individuals to contact them about becoming a member of the WHPC@SDSC. For more information about the group and details about the upcoming meeting please contact: womenhpc@sdsc.edu.

WHPC Mission

To promote, build and leverage a diverse and inclusive HPC workforce by enabling and energizing those in the HPC community to increase the participation of women-identified members and highlight their contributions to the success of supercomputing. To ensure that women-identified professionals are treated fairly and have equal opportunities to succeed in their chosen HPC career. To ensure everyone understands the benefits of promoting and achieving inclusivity.