Middleware guru and grid pioneer

Carl Kesselman is an ISI fellow, a research associate professor of computer science at the USC Viterbi School of Engineering, former co-chair of HPCC's Faculty Advisory Council and director of ISI's Center for Grid Technologies (CGT). His research focuses on all aspects of grid computing, including basic infrastructure, security, resource management, high-level services and grid applications. One of the lead researchers for the National Science Foundation's National Middleware Initiative, he was one of the founders of the Globus Alliance™, which has developed Globus Toolkit®, the de facto software standard for grid computing.

Recently hailed as the "Lewis and Clark of the grid" by Wired magazine, Kesselman and Ian Foster, his collaborator at the Argonne National Lab in Illinois, initiated the development of Globus Toolkit®. For their Globus work, Kesselman and Foster were heralded by MIT Technology Review as the creators of one of the 10 technologies that will change the world. Thanks to Kesselman, many of those changes are happening first at USC. For example, he and his colleagues at CGT recently deployed grid security software across the USC campus network. As a result, everyone with a USC computer account can securely gain access to supercomputing power using a single password — not only at USC, but also at supercomputing centers around the globe.

As part of NSF's National Earthquake Engineering and Simulation (NEES) program, Kesselman and his colleagues at CGT have created NEESgrid, whose goal is to create a new, virtual laboratory that connects earthquake engineering testing sites across the nation and enables earthquake engineers to conduct innovative experiments in their field. In addition, CGT is working with a wide range of national and international research groups that are using grids to investigate important scientific questions in fields ranging from sub-atomic physics to cosmology, and from climatology to astronomy. Kesselman and his CGT colleagues also are helping to lead the development of new grid infrastructure — ensuring that USC and HPCC will remain key players in the international effort to create cyberinfrastructure.