Home

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-lead PI of the PESO project, a five-year post-ECP software-ecosystem stewardship and advancement project that is part 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)

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.