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Lois Curfman McInnes is a senior computational scientist and Argonne distinguished fellow in the Mathematics and Computer Science Division of Argonne National Laboratory. She received a Ph.D. in Applied Mathematics from the University of Virginia in 1993.  Her research focuses on numerical algorithms and software for the parallel solution of large-scale scientific applications involving nonlinear partial differential equations and related optimization problems in the PETSc/TAO libraries.  More broadly, her work focuses on high-performance computational science, with emphasis on scalable numerical libraries and community collaboration toward productive and sustainable software ecosystems.

Lois serves as co-PI of the PESO project, a newly-funded five-year post-ECP software-ecosystem stewardship and advancement project; she also serves on the leadership team of the Consortium for the Advancement of Scientific Software (CASS).

During 2020 – 2023, Lois served as Deputy Director of the Software Technology focus area of the DOE Exascale Computing Project (ECP).

• Powering HPC discoveries through scientific software ecosystems and communities (slides from an invited presentation at SC21, Nov 2021)
• How community software ecosystems can unlock the potential of exascale computing, Nature Computational Science, Feb 2021 (article by ECP focus area leads)

She also served on the leadership team of the ECP Broadening Participation Initiative:

• Broadening Participation in HPC: Together we can make a difference (slides from an invited presentation at SC23, Nov 2023)
• Building a diverse and inclusive community for mission-driven team science, IEEE CiSE, Sept-Oct 2023

High-Performance Scientific Software

Scientific software productivity and sustainability:   Lois co-led the IDEAS scientific software productivity project (2014-2023), which engaged teams to improve software productivity and sustainability as a key aspect of advancing overall scientific productivity.

• A cast of thousands: How the IDEAS productivity project has advanced software productivity and sustainability, IEEE CiSE, 2024
• Better Scientific Software site: https://bssw.io
• Better Scientific Software (BSSw) Fellowship Program: https://bssw.io/fellowship

During 2018-2019, Lois served as the technical area lead of work on Math Libraries in ECP Software Technology. During 2014-2018, Lois led community collaboration on the Extreme-scale Scientific Software Development Kit (xSDK), which is working toward a software ecosystem for high-performance numerical libraries.  The vision of the xSDK is to provide infrastructure for and interoperability of a collection of related and complementary software elements—developed by diverse, independent teams throughout the high-performance computing (HPC) community.

• Slides from invited presentation: Toward Community Software Ecosystems for High-Performance Computational Science, SIAM PP18, Tokyo, Japan, March 8, 2018.

SIAM Activity Group on Supercomputing (SIAG/SC):

• Initiatives to raise awareness of impact and opportunities in high-performance computing: https://siag-sc.org …. Get involved … join us!
• Article in SIAM News:  How We Can All Play the High-Performance Game: From Laptops to Supercomputers, Dec 2023

SIAM Activity Group on Computational Science and Engineering (SIAG/CSE):

• Article in SIAM Review: Research and Education in Computational Science and Engineering, 2018.
• Established SIAG/CSE Early Career Prize, 2016.

More info:

Lois co-organized a 2011 workshop on Multiphysics Simulations: Challenges and Opportunities, sponsored by the Institute for Computing in Science (ICiS).   See a special issue of IJHPCA, Feb 2013.

In 1988 Lois earned a B.S. in Mathematics and Physics, Summa Cum Laude, from Muhlenberg College, Allentown, PA.  Lois and her husband have two daughters.  Her extracurricular activities include strength training, Zumba and yoga; previously she participated in triathlons and co-led two Girl Scout troops and a service unit.

Awards and Honors

Publications

Publications at Google Scholar

Selected Recent Professional Activities

• Chair, SIAM Activity Group on Supercomputing, 2022-2023
• Leadership team, ECP Broadening Participation Initiative
• Co-Chair (with Petros Koumoutsakos), PASC22 Conference
• Co-Editor (with Sadaf Alam and Kengo Nakajima), IEEE TPDS Special Section on Innovative R&D toward the Exascale Era, vol 33, issue 4, April 2022 (online Oct 2021)
• SIAM Council, 2018 – 2023
• Co-Chair (with Douglas Arnold), 2018 SIAM Annual Meeting
• Co-Chair (with Jeff Hittinger), 2017 DOE ASCR Applied Math PI Meeting
• Vice Chair (with Yves Robert, Chair), SC17 Panels
• Member, National Academies Board on Mathematical Sciences and Analytics, 2017-20
• Chair, SIAM Activity Group on Computational Science and Engineering, 2015-16
• Chair, SC16 Tech Papers (with Rich Vuduc, Vice Chair)
• Co-Chair (with Paul Bonoli), DOE Workshop on Integrated Simulations for Magnetic Fusion Energy Sciences, 2015
• Co-Chair (with Hans De Sterck and Chris Johnson), 2015 SIAM Conference on Computational Science and Engineering (CSE15) – poster sizzle video
• Program Director, SIAM Activity Group on Computational Science and Engineering, 2013-14
• Co-Chair (with Hans Johansen), DOE Workshop on Software Productivity for Extreme-Scale Science (SWP4XS), 2014
• SIAM Education Committee, 2015 – 2020
• Editorial Board, SIAM News, 2012 – present
• Member, ACM and IEEE

Research Interests

• high-performance scientific software ecosystems
• computational science and engineering
• scientific software productivity and sustainability
• workforce issues in computational science
• numerical solution of partial differential equations and related optimization problems
• multiphysics algorithms and software

History: Margaret Butler @ Argonne

• The Remarkable Career of Margaret Butler: From ‘Computer’ to Senior Computer Scientist, invited presentation, Symposium on 30 Years of
  Parallel Computing at Argonne, Argonne National Laboratory, 2013.
• The Remarkable Career of a Pioneering Computational Scientist, SIAM News, 2013.
• Margaret Butler Celebration of Women in Computational Science and Nuclear Engineering, Argonne National Lab, June 2015.

Selected Prior Projects

Lois served as a co-PI of the Frameworks, Algorithms, and Scalable Technologies for Mathematics (FASTMath) Institute during 2011-2020, funded by the Department of Energy’s Scientific Discovery through Advanced Computing (SciDAC) program.