John P. Ziebarth

Throughout his career leading educational and governmental communities at the forefront of high performance computing (HPC), computational science, and engineering, John has found occasion to design and implement major educational initiatives with a focus on enhancing teacher and student experiences in computational science and HPC.  During his engagements at various institutions including Department of Energy (DOE) labs, NASA, and academic appointments, John has made broader engagement a priority and a reality for underrepresented learners in the sciences.

Dr. Ziebarth served as the Senior Vice President and Chief Operating Officer at the Krell Institute where he supervised personnel, operations and programs related to high performance computing and computational science and engineering.

Prior to joining Krell, Dr. Ziebarth served as the Lead for the Advanced Computing Laboratory (ACL) at the Department of Energy’s Los Alamos National Laboratory, a high performance computing research organization focused on computer science research, advanced computer systems integration and large-scale scientific application development.

Previously, Dr. Ziebarth worked at NASA Ames Research Center initially as the Director of the Consolidated Supercomputing Management Office, the NASA Program Office coordinating high-end computing investments across the Agency and then as the Deputy Division Chief and then Division Chief for the NASA Advanced Supercomputing (NAS) Division.  The NAS division conducts research in computer science, computational science and engineering and operates the largest supercomputing systems within NASA.

As Associate Director at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, Dr. Ziebarth directed a division with responsibility for computational science and high performance computing education, information technology transfer and Web/Internet development.  John led NCSA’s involvement in the Department of Defense (DoD) High Performance Computing programs at three DoD Major Shared Research Centers (MSRC).

John helped bring education for high school teachers into the supercomputing conferences beginning with SC91, subsequently directing educational programming for the conferences for several years.

In 1987, Dr. Ziebarth became the Director of the Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) Laboratory and a Computer Science faculty at the University of Alabama in Huntsville, where he taught undergraduate and graduate courses and directed two Ph.D. dissertations   While at UAH, he directed one of the five National Science Foundation (NSF) SuperQuest centers, which hosted high school students from across the nation each summer.  As director, Dr. Ziebarth also developed new business and managed existing contracts with NASA Marshall Space Flight Center, the NSF, the DOE and the State of Alabama.  Ziebarth brought a program in computational science and HPC to high school students in Alabama, with a key focus on bringing women and underrepresented minorities into computational science.  The program was then adopted by the DOE and NASA for use in ten states including Iowa where it was called the Adventures in Supercomputing program. Dr. Ziebarth also directed one of the five NSF SuperQuest centers at UAH, which hosted high school students from across the nation each summer.

Before joining the University of Alabama, Ziebarth conducted computational fluid dynamics research at Argonne National Laboratory, Rockwell International Corporation and at Colorado State University.

Dr. Ziebarth currently works part time as a consultant for clients in the area of high performance computing and computational science education and manages a cattle and horse ranch in north Alabama.

He holds a Ph.D. in Aerospace Engineering from Mississippi State University, an M.A. in Mathematics from Eastern Illinois University and a B.S. in Physics and Mathematics from Eastern Illinois University.