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High-Performance Computing is a phenomenon that many are not aware of, even in 2023. The sphere of computer science evolves and grows constantly, without waiting for the rest of the world to catch up. That is what makes being at the forefront of this field, a feat of pre-eminence.
Meet Dr. Anjus George, whose inspiring journey from the humble origins of Cherthala in Kerala, India, to becoming a trailblazer in the world of advanced computing serves as a testament to the power of determination and relentless pursuit of knowledge.
Born and raised in Cherthala, Anjus hails from modest beginnings. Growing up in a quintessentially Indian community, she developed a deep curiosity for technology and its potential to transform lives. Her excursion in the complex field of advanced computing kicked off when her passion for tech drove her to earn a doctorate degree from University of North Carolina at Charlotte, USA, in Electrical and Computer Engineering with a focus on developing distributed systems for the Edge and IoT systems.
As part of research work during her Ph.D., Anjus designed and implemented one of her most notable projects, ‘Mez’ in 2021 — a novel distributed messaging system for IoT-Edge that achieved more than 10x latency improvement over other state-of-the-art distributed messaging systems. Mez is one of the most cited and referenced papers in the domain of distributed messaging and Edge computing, and makes the foundation for many international research papers.
In simpler terms, Mez is a messaging system designed for efficient communication between multiple cameras and a computer or a server at the edge of the IoT network. This enables real-time monitoring and faster decision-making based on the captured video feeds.
Upon completing her studies, Dr. George began her professional career in the tech industry, taking on a role at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, USA, that allowed her to explore cutting-edge technologies and their applications. Oak Ridge National Laboratory located in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, United States is a federally funded research and development center It has several of the world’s top supercomputers, including Frontier, ranked as the world’s most powerful.
The breakthrough in Anjus’s career came in 2022, when she scored the opportunity to work on the world’s fastest supercomputer — the Frontier. It was a groundbreaking project that required analyzing massive datasets using high performance computing systems. Dr. George, even at present, is one of the lead developers behind a data management system, QuickSilver that facilitates data movement across different tiers of the Frontier’s storage system. QuickSilver makes room for incoming data from science applications and allows them to run at its peak performance by utilizing the high-performance tier of Frontier’s storage system, Orion. Dr. George’s research also spans into characterizing and analyzing the performance of various storage components in Frontier.
Over the years, she has developed a strong foundation in artificial intelligence, machine learning, and parallel computing. Dr. George has evolved as a self-made expert in Lustre code, a widely used parallel file system that provides high-speed access to data for large-scale computing clusters. She authored a manual on Lustre internals in 2021, which is one of the most widely used manuals for implementing Lustre in supercomputers around the world today. She is also a highly cited author and has published several articles in the areas of Distributed systems and High-Performance Computing. The concepts that she writes about are referred to by students, academicians, and professionals across the community.
In 2023, she bagged the distinction of being selected for ATPESC: Argonne National Laboratory’s Training Program on Extreme-Scale Computing, which provides an intensive, two-week training on the key requisites to design, implement, and execute computational science and engineering applications on current high-end computing systems and the leadership-class computing systems of the future.
Her exceptional work and contributions to the world of supercomputing have earned her recognition and acclaim, not only within academic circles but also in the scientific community at large. In furtherance of that, one of the papers co-authored by Anjus was selected to be published in SC23 — the world’s top International Conference for High Performance Computing, Networking, Storage, and Analysis.
This superwoman of the tech world currently works as an HPC Storage R&D staff at the National Center for Computational Sciences division at ORNL, and leads several research and development efforts that directly impact the functionality and performance of the United States Department of Energy’s exascale supercomputers.
Dr. George’s journey from just a tech enthusiast from Kerala to working on the world’s fastest supercomputer in the United States exemplifies the transformative power of education, perseverance, and dreaming big. Today, she is widely recognized as a leading high performance computing expert and a sought-after speaker in prestigious conferences and industry events. Despite her accomplishments, Anjus remains deeply rooted in her origins. She actively engages with her hometown community, organizing workshops and mentoring aspiring data scientists. Through her inspiring story, she seeks to ignite the same passion for knowledge and innovation that fueled her own journey.
