Ian Foster

/ University of Chicago/

Principal Investigator, RDCEP 

Arthur Holly Compton Distinguished Service Professor, Department of Computer Science, University of Chicago

Director, Computation Institute, Argonne National Laboratory and University of Chicago    

Associate Director, Mathematics and Computer Science Division, Argonne National Laboratory

 

Areas of Expertise:

  • Computer Science: Collaborative computing
  • Computer Science: Grid computing
  • Computer Science: High-performance computing

Foster develops tools and techniques that allow people to use high-performance computers in innovative ways. He co-invented grid computing, which has become the de facto computation standard for data-intensive, mutli-institution collaboration. As director of the Computation Institute, Foster brings together computational scientists and discipline thought leaders to work on a wide range of projects, with computation as a key component. He oversees the Distributed Systems Laboratory (DSL), which operates at both the University of Chicago and at Argonne National Laboratory. The DSL serves as the nexus of the multi-institutional Globus Project, a research and development effort that provides the advances required to make collaborative computing successful in science, engineering, business and other areas. Globus technologies are used by thousands of researchers worldwide and form the basis of several dozen national and international collaborative computing projects.

In March 2006, Foster was appointed director of the Computation Institute, a joint project between the University and Argonne that addresses the most challenging computational and communications problems arising from a broad range of intellectual pursuits.

Foster's honors include the Lovelace Medal of the British Computer Society and the Gordon Bell Prize for high-performance supercomputing.

Research Projects

FACE-IT | pSIMS | Parched Earth | Shadowing | CIM-EARTH | SOLE | GGCMI | Evaluating the utility of dynamical downscaling in agricultural impacts projections | InterSectoral Impacts Model Intercomparison and Improvement Project (ISI-MIP) | 

Former Students and Postdoctoral Scholars

Sou-Cheng Choi | Quan Tran Pham | Adriana Ciccone | Jeremy Archer

Publications
Joshua Elliott et al. The parallel system for integrating impact models and sectors (pSIMS). Proceedings of XSEDE '13: Gateway to Discovery. 2013; (Article No. 21).
Joshua Elliott et al. "Unilateral carbon taxes, border adjustments, and carbon leakage." Theoretical Inquiries in Law 14 (2013): 207-243.
Joshua Elliott et al. "Impact on US Gasoline Prices of Eliminating Biofuels Production: An Equilibrium Analysis" (2012). RDCEP Working Paper No. 12-05, Argonne National Laboratory, 2011.
Elliott, Joshua, Ian Foster, Samuel Kortum, Gita Khun Jush, Todd Munson, and David Weisbach. "Unilateral Carbon Taxes Border Adjustments and Carbon Leakage" (2012). RDCEP Working Paper No. 12-04.
J. Elliott et al. The global gridded crop model intercomparison: data and modeling protocols for phase 1 (v1.0). Geoscientific Model Development, 8(2):261–277, 2015.
Joshua Elliott et al. "Predicting Agricultural Impacts of Large-Scale Drought: 2012 and the Case for Better Modeling" (2013). RDCEP Working Paper Series No. 13-01.
Elliott, Joshua, Margaret Loudermilk, Nirupama Rao, Ian Foster, Don Fullerton, & Todd Munson. "Building a Custom Initialization Data Product for a Life-cycle OLG Model." GTAP Working Paper. June 2011.
Elliott, Joshua, Ian Foster, Samuel Kortum, Todd Munson, Fernando Perez Cervantes, and David Weisbach. "Trade and carbon taxes." The American Economic Review (2010): 465-469.
Joshua Elliott et al. "Propagation of data error and parametric sensitivity in computable general equilibrium models." Computational Economics 39, no. 3 (2012): 219-241.
Elliott, Joshua, Ian Foster, Kenneth Judd, Elisabeth Moyer, and Todd Munson. "CIM-EARTH: Framework and case study." The BE Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy 10, no. 2 (2010).
Ian Foster et al. "FACE-IT: Framework to Advance Climate, Economics, and Impact Investigations with Information Technology." In AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts, vol. 1, p. 1618. 2013.
Michael Glotter et al. "Evaluating the utility of dynamical downscaling in agricultural impacts projections." Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 111, no. 24 (2014): 8776-8781.
Michael Glotter et al. Evaluating the utility of dynamical downscaling in agricultural impacts projections. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 111(24):8776–8781, 2014.
Margaret S. Loudermilk et al. "Computable General Equilibrium Analysis of Economic Policies on the US Biofuels Market." Instruments for Green Futures Markets (2011): 7.
Malik, Tanu, Quan Pham and Ian Foster. "SOLE: Towards Descriptive and Interactive Publications." Implementing Reproducible Research. Chapman & Hall/CRC; (2014).
Montella, R. et al. (2015) FACE-IT: A science gateway for food security research. Concurrency & Computation: Practice & Experience
R Montella et al. Face-it: A science gateway for food security research. Proceedings of the 9th Gateway Computing Environments Workshop, 2014
Morin, Andrew, Jennifer M. Urban, Paul D. Adams, Ian Foster, Andrej Sali, David Baker, and Piotr Sliz. "Shining light into black boxes." Science (New York, NY) 336, no. 6078 (2012): 159.
Quan Pham et al. "SOLE: linking research papers with science objects." In Provenance and Annotation of Data and Processes, Springer Berlin Heidelberg, (2012): 203-208.
Q Pham, T Malik, and I Foster. Auditing and maintaining provenance in software packages. In Provenance and Annotation of Data and Processes, 2014.
Best, Neil, Joshua Elliott, and Ian Foster. "Synthesis of a Complete Land Use/Land Cover Dataset for the Conterminous United States" (May 4, 2012). RDCEP Working Paper No. 12-08.
K Chard et al. Globus data publication as a service: Lowering barriers to reproducible science. 11th IEEE International Conference on eScience, 2015
Joshua Elliott et al. "Modeling of Land-Use Changes & Other Indirect Effects of Biofuel Production in CIM-EARTH." Prepared for the U.S. Department of Energy Biomass Program, Final Report October 2011.
Joshua Elliott et al. The parallel system for integrating impact models and sectors (psims). Environmental Modelling & Software, 62:509–516, 2014.
Joshua Elliott et al. "A spatial modeling framework to evaluate domestic biofuel-induced potential land use changes and emissions." Environmental science & technology 48, no. 4 (2014): 2488-2496.
Joshua Elliott et al. "CIM-EARTH: Community Integrated Model of Economic and Resource Trajectories for Humankind." Mathematics and Computer Science Division Technical Memorandum ANL/MCS-TM-307.
Joshua Elliott et al. "Modeling of Land-Use Changes and Other Indirect Effects of Biofuel Production in CIM-EARTH." DOE Office of Biomass Program (2012).
Joshua Elliott et al. "Impact on US Gasoline Prices of Eliminating Biofuels Production: An Equilibrium Analysis," February 2012. RDCEP Policy Analysis Paper No. 12-02.

Alison Brizius

/

Executive Director, Center for Robust Decision making on Climate and Energy Policy

Computation Institute

University of Chicago and Argonne National Laboratory

 

Alison Brizius is the Executive Director of the Center for Robust Decision making on Climate and Energy Policy and a member of the Computation Institute at the University of Chicago and Argonne National Laboratory.  Alison's interests center on developing innovative and sustainable approaches to improving the quality and accessibility of scientific information for public policy decision-making. Prior to joining RDCEP, she was the policy and special projects manager for the Chicago Council on Science and Technology (C2ST).  There she led a broad range of activities designed to increase public understanding of science policy issues of national importance.  Alison received her Ph.D. in Physics from the University of Chicago in 2011 where she helped design, construct, test and analyze data from a microwave telescope and detector array based at the Chajnantor Observatory, in San Pedro de Atacama, Chile.  This experiment (QUIET) was designed to measure the polarization of the cosmic microwave background radiation, the characteristics of which have the potential to elucidate the structure and evolution of the early universe.  She received her B.S. in Physics from Stanford University and her M.S. in Physics from the University of Chicago.  

Research Projects

FACE-IT | webDICE | Energy Inventory | Chicago Climate Online | Climate Emulator | RPS

Recent RDCEP Publications:

Recent RDCEP Presentations and Workshops:

  • “FACE-IT: Framework to Advance Climate Economic and Impacts Investigations with Information Technology.” Next Generation Agricultural Systems Models Part 2, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Washington, D.C. January 29, 2015.
  • “Introduction to FACE-IT for AgMIP.” AgMIP Phase 2 Fundamentals Workshop, Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe. June 29, 2015.
  • "Information intensive research initiatives at the Center of Robust Decision making on Climate and Energy Policy." Workshop on Research Information Technologies and their Role in Advancing Science, University of Chicago, May 2014.