Gladys Chen is a recent Master’s of Computer Science graduate from Oral Roberts University. She hopes to meld her passions for social change, mathematics, and data analytics and has found critical allies for her future research and career paths. One of her strongest supporters is her Sustainable Research Pathways (SRP) mentor, Dr. Suzanne Parete-Koon, an HPC Engineer at Oak Ridge Leadership Computing Facility (OLCF). Dr. Parete-Koon has a background in computational astrophysics and is currently the training lead for OLCF and a participant in the Exascale Computing Project Broadening Participation Initiative, designed to expand the pipeline and workforce for Department of Energy (DOE) high-performance computing (HPC).
“Suzanne has had a profound influence on both my personal and professional development,” noted Gladys in her nomination for the Mentor MVP for Technical & Professional Internships at ORNL. “Beyond her technical expertise, Suzanne recognizes the significance of fostering communities and building connections across diverse professional fields. She has taught me that technical expertise alone is insufficient; genuine care for people and a willingness to uplift others are pivotal for long-term success and fulfillment in the workplace.”
Dr. Parete-Koon won the award this summer (out of 630 mentors), and Gladys was able to present it to her at the most recent SHI Intro to HPC Bootcamp. But Gladys was not the only one who benefitted from the SRP experience. Over the course of the summer, Gladys helped develop introductory HPC material for the Oak Ridge HPC Crash Course and developed Python tutorials on analyzing correlations between variables, learning how to plot maps, visualizations, etc. for the Intro to HPC Bootcamp to help students develop energy justice projects, focusing on the skills needed to build a research project from scratch.
“I’ve never seen such a productive intern before in my life,” says Dr. Parete-Koon. “Gladys really fleshed those tutorials out and added her data science perspective with her Master’s degree in Data Science. It made our tutorials a thousand times better. Those are exercises we can repurpose for many course runs. In addition, her organizational skills helped students and faculty think about, consider, and decide upon their research projects. She did this all while also completing her own Master’s thesis in Big Data Frameworks and meeting with people at Oak Ridge to get ideas about her own next steps.”
Gladys hopes to apply her academic training in Mathematics and Data Analytics to various computational problems and social challenges through HPC or educational outreach and possibly at a National Lab. “The people I met at the National Labs are passionate about their field of science, what it looks like to advance science in the context of community, and exploring social impact through their work,” says Gladys.
Dr. Parete-Koon, for one, is hoping Gladys finds a home with a National Lab. “I’m hoping she can come to Oak Ridge or one of the other centers and that we can collaborate on continuing to broaden participation in computing.”
To learn more about Sustainable Research Pathways visit the SRP 2023-2024 page.
To apply visit our submission site.