New York, Sept. 18, 2024 – ACM, the Affiliation for Computing Equipment, and IEEE Pc Society have named David A. Padua, Donald Biggar Willett Professor Emeritus in Engineering on the College of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, because the recipient of the 2024 ACM-IEEE CS Ken Kennedy Award.
The award acknowledges groundbreaking achievements in parallel and excessive efficiency computing (HPC). Padua is cited for modern and usable contributions to the speculation and apply of parallel compilation and instruments, in addition to service to the computing neighborhood.
Padua has made elementary contributions which have helped make parallel computation universally helpful. He has labored on the ranges of elementary algorithms for parallelism, basic instruments for parallel programming (compilers and debuggers), and domain-specific languages, purposes, and instruments, in addition to autotuning strategies and compiler high quality analysis. His particular contributions embody:
- Synchronization of a number of threads throughout computation is important for prime efficiency computer systems to provide appropriate outcomes. Two key methods launched by Padua and his college students to allow the right synchronization of a number of threads throughout parallel computing embody speculative parallelism and array privatization.
- Padua and his college students launched a lot of the essential analysis that has made basic parallel programming instruments frequent at this time. He was straight concerned in creating race detection for debugging parallel applications, in addition to array tiling to enhance parallelism and cache efficiency.
- In HPC, domain-specific parallelism has been particularly efficient in numerous particular function purposes. Padua’s contributions on this space embody the event of parallel Matlab compilation, and contributions to compilation features of sign processing together with the SPIRAL challenge.
- Padua and his college students have made necessary contributions to the analysis of compilers, together with the vectorizing compiler analysis methods which have been utilized by compiler groups at Intel and different corporations.
Along with his technical contributions, Padua is acknowledged for excellent service to the sector. He built-in the concepts of parallel computing as editor of the Encyclopedia of Parallel Computing (Springer), a four-volume publication that’s extensively revered within the discipline. Padua has additionally served as editor of a number of esteemed parallel computing journals, chaired and/or participated in program committees for over 70 conferences, and supervised 37 PhD dissertations. His former college students signify a brand new era of proficient people who’ve gone on to make important contributions to each academia and business.
Padua acquired his Bachelor of Science diploma in Pc Science from the Universidad Central de Venezuela, and a PhD in Pc Science from the College of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
He’s a Fellow of ACM, IEEE, and the American Affiliation for the Development of Science (AAAS). His honors additionally embody receiving the Harry H. Goode Memorial Award from the IEEE Pc Society, and an honorary PhD from the College of Vallodolid, Spain.
The Ken Kennedy Award will probably be formally offered to Padua in November at The International Conference for High Performance Computing, Networking, Storage and Analysis (SC24).
ACM and IEEE CS co-sponsor the Kennedy Award, which was established in 2009 to acknowledge substantial contributions to programmability and productiveness in computing and important neighborhood service or mentoring contributions. It was named for the late Ken Kennedy, founding father of Rice College’s laptop science program and a world skilled on excessive efficiency computing. The Kennedy Award carries a US $5,000 honorarium endowed by IEEE CS and ACM.
The Association for Computing Machinery is an academic and scientific computing society, uniting computing educators, researchers, and professionals to encourage dialogue, share assets, and handle the sector’s challenges. ACM strengthens the computing career’s collective voice by way of robust management, promotion of the very best requirements, and recognition of technical excellence. ACM helps the skilled progress of its members by offering alternatives for life-long studying, profession improvement, {and professional} networking.