Message from the Chair


Dear Colleagues,

It is my great pleasure to welcome you to the 9th Annual 2016 Rice Oil and Gas High Performance Computing Conference. If you’ve been here before, thank you for continuing to share our vision to advance both industry and the technology that enables it to thrive on a global scale. For those who are attending the conference for the first time, it’s exciting to have you here and I hope you will make this an annual event. This year’s conference is different – the name has changed and there’s a new aura that exudes hope for a more prosperous oil and gas market in 2016. Let’s all keep our chins up, fingers crossed, and do what we can to help crude prices and production regain their sweet spot in the marketplace – after all, this is a self-regulating market! As for the name change, this event has grown so much that it could no longer be confined to its former “workshop” name and will therefore be known as the “Rice Oil and Gas High Performance Computing Conference”.

As last year’s OG-HPC Workshop came to an end, I immediately began anticipating this year’s conference, knowing that we would again be presented with phenomenal speakers and cutting-edge ideas that challenge the limits of what we can accomplish as both a community and as individuals. Whether you have arrived here looking for ways to improve your systems scalability, hear about the latest techniques and tools in programming, how to leverage your costs while increasing impact, or just to learn about high-performance computing in general – I assure you, you’re in the right place. There are few opportunities like this that offer such a diverse technical program along with tutorial sessions and a venue filled with companies showcasing their tools and technologies designed to help your business. During the two days, tutorial classes will be covering HPCToolkit, OpenMP, PETSc, and libMesh. World-class industry leaders from ANL, ORNL, PGS, Total, and others will give insight to today’s industry challenges and show us how supercomputers and high-performance computing are reshaping the industry and delivering real-world data from the exploration fields.

There are a number of students studying computational mathematics, scientific computing, computer science, and engineering who are joining us and are eager to show you their ideas and research – I encourage you to check out their posters and prepare to be impressed! Along with proceeds from last year’s workshop, the generosity of this year’s sponsorships have enabled the Ken Kennedy Institute to increase the number of graduate recruiting fellowships continuing to build a vibrant workforce. I am humbled by the level of support our sponsors continue to give – your support is a true testament to the value this conference provides.

On behalf of the Oil and Gas High-Performance Computing Conference Committee and all the people who have devoted their talents to make this event possible, we hope you walk away engaged with fresh ideas and valuable relationships that will sow long-term rewards for your companies and the people who make them great. Next year, March 15-16, 2017, marks the 10th Anniversary of the Rice Oil and Gas High-Performance Computing Conference – don’t miss it!

All the best,

Jan E. Odegard
Rice University
Associate Vice President, Office of Information Technology/
Executive Director, Ken Kennedy Institute for Information Technology

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