Guided Interest Groups (GIGs) are community learning experiences designed to help student attendees navigate the SC Technical Program while focusing on key topics in high performance computing (HPC) related to their interests.
The GIGs this year span topics ranging from the fundamentals of HPC to state-of-the-art developments in machine learning, artificial intelligence, sustainability, and scientific applications.
GIGs are open to all students attending the conference, with priority given to those participating in the Students@SC cohorts.
Pre-registration for a specific GIG is required to attend the kickoff event. See the sign-up form below.
Student Volunteers ChairElizabett Hillery, Purdue University
Guided Interest Groups ChairConnor F Scully-Allison, The University of Chicago
1 OCT 2025
Sign-ups Open
11 NOV 2025
Sign-ups Close
16 NOV 2025
GIGs Kickoff
Review the GIGs below and sign up using the form above by November 11, 2025.
As scientific computing tackles ever larger problems at ever finer resolutions, it has grown ever more vital that scientific applications are able to fully leverage available high-performance computing (HPC) resources. This need has fueled the discovery of innovative techniques for designing, scaling, and optimizing scientific applications. Over the course of the conference, we will explore state-of-the-art applications pushing the world’s largest supercomputers to their limits, achieving exceptional performance, scalability, or time-to-solution on engineering or scientific problems from a wide variety of domains.
Jessica Imlau Dagostini
Jessica is a fourth year Ph.D. student at UC Santa Cruz. Her research interests are in exploring computational strategies to improve the performance of scientific applications and exploring load balancing techniques on parallel applications. She is a 2024 ACM SIGHPC Fellow and has been involved with the SC Conferences since 2020.
Aashish Pandey
Aashish Pandey is a Ph.D. candidate and Graduate Research Assistant at the University of North Texas, working with Dr. Sanjukta Bhowmick. His research focuses on developing parallel algorithms for analyzing large-scale networks. He is interested in applying graph-based techniques to improve the performance of high-performance computing (HPC) applications. Outside of his research work, he enjoys outdoor activities such as playing tennis, soccer, and hiking.
Sunday, Nov 16
5:30–6:15 pm, Room 263
9–9:25 am, Room 240
Workshop: Accelerating Advanced Light Source Science Through Multi-Facility HPC Workflows
9:00 am–5:30 pm, Room 231
Workshop: 16th Workshop on Latest Advances in Scalable Algorithms for Large-Scale Heterogeneous Systems (ScalAH’25)
Monday, Nov 17
11:30 am–12 pm, Room 230
Workshop: Parallel Data Object Creation: Scalable Metadata Management in Parallel I/O Library
Tuesday, Nov 18
12:12–12:30 pm, Room 264
Paper: Bridging Speed and Optimality in Job Scheduling: A Hybrid Ant Colony Optimization Approach for Distributed Systems
10:30–10:52 am, Room 260-267
Paper: Plexus: Taming Billion-Edge Graphs with 3D Parallel Full-Graph GNN Training
11:14–11:36 am, Room 263-264
Paper: CPU- and GPU-Initiated Communication Strategies for Conjugate Gradient Methods on Large GPU Clusters
Tuesday, Nov 18 (continued)
5:15–6:30 pm, America’s Ballroom
BoF: TOP500 BoF
10:30 am–12 pm, Room 231-232
Panel: Cyberinfrastructure for Petascale Earth System Data
1:30–3 pm, Room 240-241-242
Panel: Large-scale and High-density AI and HPC: Sustainability Challenges
Wednesday, Nov 19
1:30–1:52 pm, Room 261-262-265-266
Paper: X-MoE: Enabling Scalable Training for Emerging Mixture-of-Experts Architectures on HPC Platforms
2:14–2:36 pm, Room 261-262-265-266
Paper: Balanced and Elastic End-to-End Training of Dynamic LLMs
5:15–6:45 pm, Room 130
BoF: Real-Time Scientific Data Streaming to HPC Nodes: Challenges and Innovations I
Panel: System and Software Testing for Post-Exascale HPC- Challenges and Opportunities
Among the computer science disciplines, high performance computing (HPC) can feel very detached from the humans which use these systems. Many academic conferences and contributions hedge towards the technical: scalability, algorithms, performance optimization and hardware. With this very machine-heavy focus, it is easy to forget the goal of building HPC centers, the source of the data being used, and who is using these systems. So, in the spirit of re-injecting the human element into HPC, this GIG will take you through sessions which balance out the technical discussions with considerations of data sources, accessibility and ethics of how we may use HPC to better serve humanity.
Jay Ashworth
Jay Ashworth is a first-year computer science Ph.D. student at the University of Tennessee. He is currently contributing his talents as a Graduate Research Assistant at the esteemed Global Computing Lab, benefiting from the mentorship of the renowned Dr. Michela Taufer. Here, he primarily develops software tools for performance data collection and analytics such as the Flux Framework Emulator in collaboration with Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. His research interests include HPC schedulers, systems, and visualization.
Befikir Bogale
Befikir Bogale is a Ph.D. student at the University of Tennessee’s Global Computing Lab, specializing in performance analysis for high-performance computing applications. His research focuses on enabling deeper context into compiler optimization decisions to better inform performance tuning across diverse architectures.
9:00 am–5:30 pm, Room 232
Workshop: WHPC: Building Community, Building Careers
Workshop: Twelfth SC Workshop on Best Practices for HPC Training and Education
10:30–11:58 am, Room 263-264
Paper: Performance: Benchmarks and Optimization
12:15–1:15 pm, Room 125
BoF: Ethics in HPC: With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility
Paper: Energy, Power, and Sustainability
12:15–1:15 pm, Room 126
BoF: Building Sustainable HPC Outreach: Reinvent, Reuse, Repurpose
As high performance computing (HPC) clusters grow in computational power, there is an ever-increasing demand for energy. This has monetary implications for HPC research. In addition, this trend entails valuable resources being expended to keep up with the growing energy consumption. This GIG will serve as an exploration of recent contributions in addressing the need for more sustainability in the HPC world.
Olivia Heng
Olivia Heng is a senior at Brown University studying Computer Engineering. She has interned at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory’s Leadership Computing Facility and Microsoft, focusing on data analytics and optimizations. This is her third year with SC and Students@SC, as she is a past Student Volunteer and HPC Immersion participant.
Mazahir Hussain
Mazahir Hussain is a PhD candidate in Data & HPC Science at the Korea National University of Science and Technology (UST) and a student researcher at the Korea Institute of Science and Technology Information (KISTI) in Daejeon, South Korea. Through fellowships, he has been a visiting scholar with the NetSec group at ETH Zurich in Switzerland and with ESnet at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in the United States. He collaborates with ESnet, Berkeley Lab, and the research and education (R&E) community on the AutoGOLE/SENSE project and the P4Global testbed, and with ETH Zurich’s NetSec group on the SCION Internet architecture. AutoGOLE/SENSE, and the P4Global testbed are part of the SCinet Network Research Exhibition (NRE) at the SC conference each year. His research interests include high-performance computing/networking, end-to-end performance, and federated reinforcement learning.
2:00–5:30 pm, Room 264
Workshop: Sustainable Supercomputing
BoF: Randomized Numerical Linear Algebra in HPC: Toward a Sustainable, Scalable Software Ecosystem
3:30–5 pm, Room 231-232
Panel: Rethink Computing: Pioneering Next-Level Architectures for Sustainable AI and HPC
12:15–1:15 pm, Room 263-264
Paper: Building Resilient and Sustainable HPC Communities Across Continents
This GIG has been crafted with the aim of giving you a comprehensive understanding of the wide-reaching realm of machine learning (ML) and artificial intelligence (AI) applications and scientific computing. High performance computing (HPC) stands as a pivotal force in pushing the boundaries of scientific inquiry. Applications, in turn, benefit from integrating ML and AI with HPC’s formidable capabilities by accelerating data generation and analysis.
Kevin Assogbo
Kevin Assogba is a Ph.D. student at Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT), advised by Dr. M. Mustafa Rafique and Bogdan Nicolae (ANL). His research aims to develop system software that supports scientific reproducibility while optimizing HPC application performance. He enjoys working on simple and complex software projects and advocates for reproducible and open-source software. He also loves playing soccer and cycling.
Tamanna Saini
Tamanna is a Ph.D. student in her 2nd year in Computer Science at the University of Oregon advised by Dr. Brittany Erickson. Her research bridges Machine Learning and Computational Seismology, with particular emphasis on Physics Informed Machine Learning. Her work involves working with physics-informed neural networks (PINNs) to solve both forward and inverse problems related to the elastic wave equation. Outside of research, Tamanna enjoys playing outdoor sports, cooking, reading, listening to music and spending time with friends.
Karame Mohammadiporshokooh
Karame Mohammadiporshokooh is a Ph.D. student at Louisiana Student University as well as researcher and software developer with expertise in high-performance computing (HPC), parallel algorithms, and distributed systems. Currently, Karame focuses on optimizing the performance of parallel algorithms using C++ and the HPX runtime system. Karame has contributed to several research projects aimed at improving programmability and performance in modern computational systems.
9 am–5:30 pm, Room 241
Workshop: Frontiers in Generative AI for HPC Science and Engineering: Foundations, Challenges, and Opportunities
1:30–5 pm, Room 126
Tutorial: Performance Tuning of HPC and ML/AI Applications with the Roofline Model on GPUs, APUs, and CPUs
1:30–5 pm, Room 121
Tutorial: Programming Novel AI Accelerators for Scientific Computing
8:30 am–5 pm, Room 130
Tutorial: High-Performance and Smart Networking Technologies for HPC and AI
8:30 am–12 pm, Room 125
Tutorial: Leveraging and Evaluating LLMs for Scientific Computing
9:00 am–5:30 pm, Room 274
Workshop: AI4S: 6th Workshop on Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning for Scientific Applications
10:30 am–12 pm, Room 240-241-242
Panel: Let’s not Bicker about Who Trains Whom. HPC and AI in the Golden Age of Self-Taught Machines
12:15–1:15 pm, Room 123
BoF: Trusted Research Environments for AI and Integrated Science
3:30–5 pm, Room 240-241-242
Panel: Computing at the Edge: HPC and AI supporting Recent US Space Missions
5:15–6:45 pm, Room 123
BoF: Emerging Challenges for AI/ML Workflows
12:15–1:15 pm, Room 274
BoF: AI’s impact on HPC – opportunity or threat?
Thursday, Nov 20
Panel: Trust, but Verify in HPC: Uncertainty for AI and Computing
Panel: Research Software Engineering in the age of AI
The accelerator/quantum GIG explores how cutting-edge technologies like quantum computers and other non-GPU hardware accelerators are transforming high-performance computing. We’ll dive into topics such as quantum algorithms, hybrid quantum-classical workflows, novel accelerator architectures beyond GPUs, and how these systems integrate with traditional HPC environments. This GIG is a space for students to learn, ask questions, and connect with researchers shaping the future of scientific computing through emerging technologies.
Ria Patel
Ria Patel is a first-year Ph.D. student in Computer Science at North Carolina State University, where she researches quantum benchmarking, error correction, and algorithm development. She earned both her bachelor’s and master’s degrees in Computer Science from the University of Tennessee, with a master’s concentration in Intelligent Systems and Machine Learning, focusing on deep learning applications in HPC. Ria is passionate about bridging emerging technologies with HPC and helping students explore cutting-edge areas in computing.
Niklas Roemer
Niklas is pursuing his Master’s degree in Computer Science at ETH Zurich in Switzerland. His main interest is performance optimization through optimized communication and hardware accelerators. He is a senior member of Team RACKlette, the Student Cluster Competition team of ETH Zurich and the Swiss National Supercomputing Centre, and has been the Lead Student Volunteer at ISC in Germany the last couple of years. When not glued to a screen Niklas likes hiking in the Swiss Alps, being creative in the kitchen and loves good food in general.
9 am–5:30 pm, Room 275
Workshop: 1st Annual Workshop on Large Scale Quantum-Classical Computing
8:30 am–5 pm, Room 120
Tutorial: Introduction to Quantum Computing
3:30–5 pm, Room 260-267
Papers: Quantum Computing and Simulation
5:15–6:45 pm, Room 275
BoF: Democratizing AI Accelerators for HPC Applications: Challenges, Success, and Support
5:15–6:45 pm, Room 274
BoF: Workflows Community: Bridging Intelligent Workflows with Quantum and HPC for Scientific Discovery
Panel: Hardware Modularity for Practical Heterogeneous HPC
5:15–6:45 pm, Room 126
BoF: Advanced Architecture Testbeds: Community Resources for Enhanced HPC Research
5:15–6:45 pm, Room 124
BoF: Bridging the Gap: Making Quantum- Classical Hybridization Work in HPC
5:15–6:45 pm, Room 230
BoF: Does HPC need Neuromorphic – or does Neuromorphic need HPC?
BoF: Converged HPC-AI Platforms: Navigating the Challenges of Heterogeneous Systems
Panel: Building Sovereign Computing Ecosystems: The HPC-AI-Quantum Trinity and India’s Frugal Innovation Model
Friday, Nov 21
9 am–12:30 pm, Room 263
Workshop: Eleventh International Workshop on Heterogeneous High-performance Reconfigurable Computing (H2RC 2025)
9 am–12:30 pm, Room 275
Workshop: The First International Workshop for Software Frameworks and Workload Management on Quantum-HPC Ecosystems
As we continue our relentless pursuit of the frontiers of science, it is crucial to understand how high performance computing resources can be leveraged to accelerate discoveries in various scientific domains. In this GIG, we focus on scientific challenges facing humanity, with emphasis on this year’s contenders for the esteemed Gordon Bell Prize. This prize is awarded to a team which develops an application which achieves exceptional performance, scalability, or time-to-solution on an important engineering or scientific problem from a wide variety of domains.
Lindsey Gordon
Lindsey Gordon is a fifth year Ph.D. candidate in astrophysics at the University of Minnesota. Her work primarily focuses on using HPC systems to run high resolution simulations of large scale AGN jets, with a side of MHD code optimization for new system architectures. In her free time she writes for the outreach site astrobites.org and is involved in local community theater.
Joy Kitson
Joy Kitson is a Ph.D. student at the University of Maryland, where she is advised by Ahbinav Bhatele, and a Department of Energy Computational Science Graduate Fellow. Her current work revolves around optimizing HPC applications, with a focus on computational epidemiology, and understanding the performance portability of HPC codes. When not doing research, she enjoys swing dancing, puzzle hunts, and playing D&D and board games with friends.
1:30–3 pm, America’s Ballroom
Invited Talk: Life Sciences
1:30–3 pm, Room 240-242-242
5:15–6:45 pm, Room 263-264
BoF: Agriculture Empowered by Supercomputing
3:30–5 pm, Room 275
Paper: Graph Processing and Pattern Matching
5:15–6:45 pm, Room 260-267
BoF: HPC and Cancer: Team Data Science in the AI Era
BoF: Real-Time Scientific Data Streaming to HPC Nodes: Challenges and Innovations
5:15–6:45 pm, Room 131
BoF: Scientific Software and the People Who Make it Happen: Building Our Communities and Practices
8:30–9:15 am, America’s Ballroom
Invited Talk: Opportunities in Egocentric Video Understanding
1:30–3 pm, Room 263-264
Paper: Applications: Biological Modeling
1:30–2:36 pm, Room 263-264
Paper: Applications: Large-Scale Scientific Simulation
Are you interested in learning about what “performance” means in “high performance computing”? Are you interested in state-of-the-art research in this area? This GIG will provide an overview of different notions of performance, such as execution time and benchmarking. These sessions will give nuanced insight into the various aspects of performance and optimization. They will cover major areas of interest, such as GPU computing and leveraging tools to gauge performance.
Ian Lumsden
Ian Lumsden is a Ph.D. student studying Computer Science at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. He is a Graduate Research Assistant in the Global Computing Lab advised by Dr. Michela Taufer. In collaboration with Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, his work focuses on the study, characterization, and optimization of I/O and data movement in scientific computing workflows. He is also a developer, contributor, and collaborator on several of LLNL’s tools and projects related to performance monitoring and analysis (i.e., Thicket and Caliper), data movement (i.e., DYAD), resource management and workflow orchestration (i.e., Flux), and scientific computing workflows (i.e., MuMMI). Ian has been involved with the HPC community since joining the Global Computing Lab in 2019, and he has been a regular or lead student volunteer at SC every year since 2019. Outside of research, he enjoys reading, video games, and learning about other cultures.
Rajat Bhattarai
Rajat Bhattarai is a Graduate Research Assistant and Ph.D. candidate in the High-Performance Computing (HPC) Lab at Tennessee Tech University. His research focuses on dynamic resource management for elastic parallel applications and scientific workflows in HPC environments. He has collaborated with national research facilities, including Los Alamos National Laboratory and NERSC, on projects aimed at developing intelligent methods for scaling and scheduling workflows on large-scale computing systems to improve resource efficiency in scientific computing.
9 am–5:30 pm, Room 231
Workshop: P3HPC
9 am–5:30 pm, Room 267
Workshop: PMBS
2–5:30 pm, Room 241
Workshop: ProTools
Paper: Performance Benchmarks and Optimization
1:30–2:58 pm, Room 263-264
Paper: Performance Analysis Tools
3:30–3:52 pm, Room 275
Paper: XaaS Containers: Performance-Portable Representation with Source and IR Containers
BoF: TOP500 Supercomputers
10:52–11:14 am, Room, 260-267
Paper: MetoHash: A Memory-Efficient and Traffic-Optimized Hashing Index on Hybrid PMem-DRAM Memories
11:36–11:58 am, Room 275
Paper: COSMOS: Performance Portable Graph Pattern Matching with Domain-Specific Software Distributed Shared Memory
12:15–1:15 pm, Room 130
BoF: Navigating Complexity: Achieving Performance Portability in the Evolving Landscape of Accelerated HPC Systems
Panel: Navigating the Software Storm: Writing Software in the Age of Extreme Heterogeneity
3:30–4:58 pm, Room 260-267
Paper: Algorithms: Matching System Capabilities
Contact us if you have questions about student GIGs. We’d be happy to help.
