Larry Smarr

Larry Smarr is an American physicist and computer scientist renowned as a visionary architect of national-scale cyberinfrastructure. His pioneering work in supercomputing, scientific visualization, and high-performance networking has profoundly shaped the landscape of computational science and e-Science. Smarr is a founding director of major research centers, including the National Center for Supercomputing Applications and the California Institute for Telecommunications and Information Technology.

Early life and education

Born in Lincoln, Nebraska, Smarr demonstrated an early aptitude for mathematics and science. He pursued his undergraduate education at the University of Missouri, where he earned a Bachelor of Science degree in physics. He then continued his graduate studies at the University of Colorado Boulder, completing a Ph.D. in physics in 1975 under the supervision of renowned theoretical physicist John A. Wheeler. His doctoral research focused on Einstein's field equations and the general theory of relativity, laying a foundational analytical framework for his later computational work.

Career and research

Smarr began his academic career as a professor of physics and astronomy at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. His research shifted toward numerical relativity and computational astrophysics, where he recognized the transformative potential of supercomputers for simulating complex phenomena like black holes and cosmological models. In 1985, he successfully proposed and became the founding director of the National Center for Supercomputing Applications, a pivotal component of the National Science Foundation's Supercomputer Centers Program. Under his leadership, NCSA developed groundbreaking tools like the NCSA Mosaic web browser and provided critical computing resources for projects such as the Gravity Probe B mission.

Calit2 and the OptIPuter

In 2000, Smarr moved to the University of California, San Diego to become the founding director of the California Institute for Telecommunications and Information Technology, a joint venture with the University of California, Irvine. At Calit2, he championed the concept of the OptIPuter, a paradigm-shifting project that envisioned the Internet as a giant, distributed supercomputer by tightly integrating lambda networks with visualization and data storage systems. This work directly influenced the development of national research networks and cyberinfrastructure initiatives like the TeraGrid and the Global Environment for Network Innovations. His advocacy was instrumental in establishing UCSD as a leader in data-intensive computing and campus networking.

Awards and honors

Smarr's contributions have been recognized with numerous prestigious awards. He received the IEEE Computer Society Sidney Fernbach Award in 2006 for his foundational work in high-performance computing. He is a fellow of the American Physical Society, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and the Association for Computing Machinery. In 2013, he was inducted as a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. His work has also been honored by institutions like the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and the Association for Women in Science.

Personal life

Smarr is known for his deep engagement with the quantified self movement, meticulously tracking his personal health data. This interest took a profound turn when his own data analysis led to a self-diagnosis of Crohn's disease, which was later confirmed by medical professionals at the University of California, San Diego Medical Center. He has spoken extensively about this experience, highlighting the power of personal data analytics for preventive healthcare. His personal journey has been featured in publications like Wired and he has presented his findings at events for the National Institutes of Health. Category:American computer scientists Category:American physicists Category:1949 births Category:Living people