Two ORNL-led computing teams and a grid security team were recognized with Department of Energy Secretary’s Honor Awards, presented by Secretary Jennifer Granholm on January 8, 2025, at the DOE Forrestal building.
“The dedicated teams we are honoring are uniting to build solutions,” said Secretary Granholm. “This extraordinary cohort of public servants has faced challenges and failures but came out on the other side. They have achieved the extraordinary.”
ORNL’s award-winning teams — the Exascale Computing Project Leadership Team, the Frontier Supercomputer Integrated Project Team, and a grid security team — represent truly extraordinary achievements.
Created to develop the nation’s first capable exascale computing ecosystem, the seven-year, $1.8 billion Exascale Computing Project, or ECP, was an unprecedented DOE research, development and deployment project. The first of its kind across the Department, ECP brought together two different DOE offices — the National Nuclear Security Administration’s Advanced Simulation and Computing program and DOE Office of Science’s Advanced Scientific Computing Research program — in a unique way. The outcome was the delivery of an exascale computing ecosystem to provide breakthrough solutions that address future challenges in energy assurance, economic competitiveness, healthcare and scientific discovery, as well as growing security threats.
“The effort fostered collaboration across national laboratories, working with universities and industry partners, including 3,000 researchers, and 100 teams to deliver applications and software tools,” said DOE Deputy Secretary David Turk. “Thank you for all your leadership, partnership and collaboration.”
The Exascale Computing Project Leadership Team comprised 175 honorees from across 6 DOE labs and included 30 ORNL current and former staff members: Ashley Barker, Doug Collins, Tom Cook, Cherie Chance, Julia White, Al Geist, Willy Besancenez, Justin Keck, Mike Hulsey, Kim Milburn, Suzy Tichenor, Jonathan Wilson, Nate Noll, Tom Evans, Jeffrey Vetter, Ryan Prout, Ryan Adamson, Matt Bement, Paul Kent, Steven Hamilton, Kelli Coker, Andrey Prokopenko, Scott Klasky, Kenneth Moreland, Scott Atchley, Stephen Nichols, Paul Bryant and Lora Wolfe.
The Frontier Supercomputer Integrated Project Team represents the effort to design, build and deploy the world’s first exascale-class supercomputer. The Frontier HPE Cray EX system was successfully deployed in 2022 and broke the exascale barrier that May with a performance of 1.1 exaflops, or a billion billion operations per second. The team’s extraordinary effort took place during the global pandemic and an international supply chain crisis.
“The Frontier team executed this project a year ahead of schedule and $95 million under budget,” said Geraldine Richmond, DOE under secretary for science and innovation. “In case you didn’t know, Frontier has been ranked number one on the TOP 500 list, topped the Green 500 list, topped the AI mixed precision list, they are amazing!”
The awardees include Justin Whitt, Ashley Barker, Gina Tourassi and Matt Sieger of ORNL; John Young and Dan Hoag from the ORNL Site Office, and Christine Chalk from DOE Headquarters. The Frontier award honored a small group who proudly represented the remarkable efforts of more than 100 ORNL, DOE and vendor partner team members, whose hard work and unparalleled dedication brought Frontier to life.
Secretary Granholm concluded her remarks by saying, “Excellence is not an act, it is a habit. It is not a one off, it is the product of intentionality and great teamwork. So, on behalf of 330 million Americans, thank you for your excellence. Thank you for your service. It has truly been the honor of a lifetime to serve as Secretary alongside you.”
UT-Battelle manages ORNL for DOE’s Office of Science, the single largest supporter of basic research in the physical sciences in the United States. DOE’s Office of Science is working to address some of the most pressing challenges of our time. For more information, visit https://energy.gov/science.
This Oak Ridge National Laboratory news article "Uniting to build solutions: Secretary’s Honor Awards recognize ORNL teams" was originally found on https://www.ornl.gov/news
