Picture of William Gropp

Why you should vote for the Board of Governors

The IEEE-CS Board of Governors represents the membership of the IEEE Computer Society. It is important that this board represent all of the membership of the Computer Society and that it be not just knowlegable about the technical issues in computing but about the strategic issues facing professional societies today in their publications, support for conferences, and other services to members. The role of the Board of Governors is described in Article III of the Computer Society Bylaws.

Why you should vote for me

I am a leader in high performance computing and can represent the community to IEEE-CS. I have leadership experience with the SC conference, including interactions with the sponsoring societies (especially as finance chair and general chair, and as steering committee chair). I understand the challenges and opportunities of high performance computing and its flagship conference to IEEE-CS. I have experience building communities in HPC (for the IEEE-CS, SIAM and for ACM). As both a member of several journal editorial boards as well as co-editing the MIT Press Engineering and Computation series, I also understand the issues facing technical publishers today. I have served one term as a member of the IEEE-CS Board of Governors, which has both given me insight into the Computer Society governance and has allowed me to represent the HPC computing to the Board. The HPC commnunity needs a voice on the Board of Governors who is both a leader in the field and is familar with the largest event sponsored by the Computer Society - the annual SC conference. I have been part of the conference leadership for SC since 2006 (and a member of the technical program committee for many years before that), including technical program chair (2009), finance chair (2011), and general chair (2013). I am currently plenary (keynote) chair for SC19 and remain involved with the conference.

More about me

Some recent work on behalf of the community

IEEE CS Activities

Major Accomplishments
  • I am serving as the IEEE-CS Vice President for Technical and Conference Activities. My focus this year is on building stronger communities and on continuing the work of the Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion ad hoc committee, with a focus this year on implementation.
  • I have contributed to the technical and financial success of the largest conference sponsored by IEEE-CS, the SC conference (supercomputing.org), particularly as technical papers and program chair, and as finance chair in 2011 and general chair in 2013.
  • I am the chair of the IEEE-CS Ad Hoc to improve SC conference relations. As such, I am involved with establishing the Technical Council on HPC inside the CS.
  • I organized IEEE Cluster 2002 in Chicago, including the bid, local arrangements, and served as technical program chair.
IEEE Conference Leadership
  • IEEE/ACM SC06 Technical papers co-chair
  • IEEE/ACM SC09 Technical program chair
  • IEEE/ACM SC11 Finance chair
  • IEEE/ACM SC13 General chair
  • IEEE/ACM SC17 Vice chair
  • IEEE/ACM SC19 Plenary Production (Keynote) chair
  • IEEE/ACM SC Steering committee (2011-2015; chair-2014)
  • IEEE Cluster conference 2002 Technical program chair
  • IEEE Cluster conference 2006 Technical program chair
  • IEEE/ACM CCGrid 2012 Technical program Area chair
Technical program committee member for IEEE Conferences
  • IEEE/ACM SC 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2008, 2010, 2011
  • IEEE/ACM CCGrid 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014
  • IEEE Cluster 2003, 2004, 2014, 2015, 2016
  • IEEE IPDPS 2004, 2008, 2014, 2015
  • IEEE IWIA 2003, 2007
  • IEEE/ACM PACT 2015, 2016
  • IEEE BDSE 2014
Other IEEE Activities
  • IEEE-CS VP for Technical and Conference Activities 2019
  • IEEE-CS Board of Governors, 2016-2019
  • Chair, 2016 Ad Hoc to improve IEEE-CS / SC conference relations
  • ACM/IEEE-CS Key Kennedy Award committee (2017-2019; chair 2019)
  • IEEE-CS Seymour Cray Award committee (2004,2009)
  • IEEE-CS Sidney Fernbach Award Committee (2009)

Not only work

  • I'm a fan of science fiction. Among videos, Serenity is a favorite; I saw it before seeing Firefly. Babylon 5 is another favorite; it was one of the first TV series with a multi-year arc. And like The Expanse, at least some spacecraft obey the laws of physics!
    For books, some recent favorites include the Laundry stories of Charles Stross, the Craft sequence of Max Gladstone, and most recently The Rook by Daniel O'Malley; all three are takes on modern bureacracies meet the occult (though very different) and are good light reading. C.J. Cherryh is another favorite; both the early stories such as the Morgaine Stories and the on-going Foreigner novels.
  • I also read a lot of history ("those who don't know history are doomed to repeat it"). Two recent reads include The First Congress, about the first congress after the US constitution was ratified (and the statecraft and otherwise that defined the mechanisms for the US government that in many cases are still with us), and Neptune's Inferno, about the US Navy at Guadalcanal, with an interesting emphasis on missed opportunities for American dominance by failing to properly exploit the allies' lead in Radar.
  • The intersection of the arts and technology interest me. 19th century painters celebrated the progress of technology; Monet painted bridges and railway stations, and Turner's The Last Voyage of the Fighting Temeraire reminds us that major changes in technology (and the relegation of the previous technology to the scrap heap) didn't start in the 20th century.
  • I am lucky to have a great family. My wife, Patty, has been an unflagging source of support and love. My son, Chris, is a graduate student in Computer Science at Clemson University.
  • A Space Child's Mother Goose has the nursury rhymes updated to the 1950's. "The Theory that Jack Built" is a classic.

Disclaimer

The opinions on this page are mine and are not necessarily those of the IEEE Computer Society or the IEEE.

Computer Science Department
University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign