Speaker Bios

2024 Annual Technology Meeting

We are a vendor-neutral, non-profit 501(c)(3) organization comprised of members from industry, government, and academia worldwide. Our mission is to educate and connect the HPC & AI user community with the latest technologies and best practices to optimize business processes and promote workforce advancement.

We focus on the high-performance systems used for AI, simulation, cloud computing, quantum computing, and visualization. Our members utilize these technologies in their work in oil & gas, renewable energy, climate modeling, life sciences, manufacturing, financial services, cybersecurity, government, and academia.

You’re invited!

The Society of HPC Professionals annual technology meeting is a don’t miss event. We have a great lineup of speakers from the HPC & AI community.

Free for members
$50 for non-members 
(i.e.- it’s a great time to join, only $60 for full year, and tax deductible)

Join now

We look forward to seeing everyone this year to get back to business and networking. For those who cannot attend in person, we will have a virtual option.

Speaker Bios

Addison Snell

Addison Snell

CEO of Intersect360 Research

Addison Snell is the CEO of Intersect360 Research and a veteran of the High Performance Computing industry. He launched the company in 2007 as Tabor Research, a division of Tabor Communications, and served as that company’s VP/GM until he and his partner, Christopher Willard, Ph.D., acquired Tabor Research in 2009. During his tenure, Addison has established Intersect360 Research as a premier source of market information, analysis, and consulting. He was named one of 2010’s “People to Watch” by HPCwire.

Addison was previously an HPC industry analyst for IDC, where he was well-known among industry stakeholders. Prior to IDC, he gained recognition as a marketing leader and spokesperson for SGI’s supercomputing products and strategy. Addison holds a master’s degree from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University and a bachelor’s degree from the University of Pennsylvania.

Kelly Senecal, Ph.D.

Kelly Senecal, Ph.D.

Co-Founder, Convergent Science

Dr. Kelly Senecal is a co-founder of Convergent Science, an industry-leading computational fluid dynamics software company. He is a visiting professor at the University of Oxford, an adjunct professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and a co-founder and director of the Computational Chemistry Consortium (C3). Dr. Senecal is a Fellow of the Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE), the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME), and the Combustion Institute (CI). He is currently Chair of the executive committee of the ASME ICE Division. Recent accolades include the 2019 ASME ICE Award, the 2024 ASME Dedicated Service Award, and the 2023 SAE John Johnson Diesel Engine Research Medal.

Dr. Senecal has long been an advocate of creating cleaner propulsion systems, with a particular focus on using CFD and HPC to enable faster design. Starting with his TEDx talk in late 2016, he has promoted a diverse mix of transportation technologies through invited talks, articles, and social media. Dr. Senecal is co-author of the book Racing Toward Zero: The Untold Story of Driving Green, winner of the 2022 Independent Press Award for Environment.

Randima (Randy) Fernando

Randima (Randy) Fernando

Co-Founder, Center for Humane Technology

Randima helps leading tech companies, NGOs, policymakers, and others understand and act on the intersections between technology, ethics, mindfulness, and social good. He is a Co-Founder and former Executive Director of Center for Humane Technology, which has helped over 100 million people globally understand the harms of extractive technology through the documentary film The Social Dilemma, the podcast Your Undivided Attention, and many other initiatives.

Randy started his career at NVIDIA, where he led many award-winning projects and authored three #1-ranked books on 3D graphics over seven years. Additionally, he was a founding Board Member of the NVIDIA Foundation. Randy then served for seven years as founding Executive Director at Mindful Schools, a nonprofit that has taught mindfulness to millions of kids and over 70,000 educators worldwide. He is also on the board of Spirit Rock Meditation Center.

 

Kristjan Hafsteinsson

Kristjan Hafsteinsson

CEO, Responsible Compute

Kristjan Hafsteinsson is the Co-founder and CEO of Responsible Compute and has developed the project from conception to operation. Responsible Compute is a bit of a unicorn in the CSP world, with a hyper focus on HPC and AI/ML infrastructure delivered in a responsible way. We believe it is very important in this multi-cloud world to have the option of combining the offerings of specialized providers with those of the hyperscale providers to better fit the applications.

Since 2006 Kristjan has been actively taking part in the Data Center industry in Iceland, harnessing its sustainable energy sources. Prior to Responsible Compute, he took on key roles in and leading multiple Data Center projects for Siminn and Mila (Formerly Iceland Telecom) as well as leading two startups in the field. Iceland has a unique value proposition with its Geothermal and Hydroelectric energy sources (electricity production in Iceland is 70% Hydro and 30% Geothermal). In addition, free air-to-air cooling and water cooling provide an extremely efficient solution leading to a world class low carbon footprint.

 

Michael Gujral

Michael Gujral

HPC Service Development Manager, Shell

Michael Gujral is the HPC Service Development Manager at Shell, where he oversees the demand & delivery of high-performance computing (HPC) resources & solutions for both new and existing workloads. With a career spanning over 16 years at Shell, Michael has held diverse roles in IT, Technical Data Management, and Geophysics. He has worked in various locations, including Calgary, Pittsburgh, and his current base in Houston.

Michael earned his Bachelor’s degree in Computer Engineering from the University of British Columbia. Outside of work, he enjoys spending time with his family – he’s a proud husband and father to two lovely daughters, Amelia and Emma, aged 6 and 4. In his free time, you’ll often find him in the kitchen, experimenting with cooking, or out running to stay active and healthy.

 

Punith Shivaprasad

Punith Shivaprasad

Global Technical Lead for Immersion Coolants business, Shell

Punith Shivaprasad is working as Global Technical Lead for Immersion Coolants business, which is part of the global lubricants organization and based in Houston, TX. In his current role he provides technology support to customers in the data-centre and blockchain industry. He joined Shell in 2007 and held various roles in Projects and Technology group.

He holds PhD in Civil Engineering, and carried out postdoctoral research at Clemson University in South Carolina. Outside of work, he enjoys spending time with his family and watching cricket.

 

Mileidy Giraldo, Ph.D.

Mileidy Giraldo, Ph.D.

Worldwide Lead, Multi-Modal Multi-Omics Data Strategy, AWS

Dr. Mileidy Giraldo has over 20 years of experience as a Scientist in Academia and Industry with expertise in Omics, Bioinformatics, Protein Structure, Infectious diseases, and Vaccine design. In the past 6 years Dr. Giraldo has served as a Scientific Advisor to tech companies and Technology Strategist to Pharma R&D and IT/HPC leaders worldwide. At AWS, Dr. Giraldo is the Worldwide Head of R&D Digital and Data Strategy for Healthcare and Life Sciences. She thrives as a science-to-technology conduit translating scientific requirements into technology solutions that drive Digital Transformation.

Dr. Giraldo’s team is spearheading innovation in R&D across a number of areas, including: i) Digitally-connected labs to automate, monitor, and connect ELN/LIMS systems, lab/robotics software, and instruments and devices; ii) Digital twins as in silico alternatives to in vivo testing; iii) Genomics histopathology multi-modal Foundational Models for disease risk prediction; iv) Pan-Amazon approaches to improve trial patient engagement and adherence with Alexa; v) Gen AI to mine scientific publications and integrate with multi-omics datasets; vi) LLMs to convert scientists’ natural language queries to SQL to mine a large Genomics knowledgebase; vii/ Multi-agent solutions for multi-step drug design protocol in precision discovery.

Prior to AWS, Mileidy served as the WW Head of Healthcare and Life Sciences for Lenovo’s HPC & AI Group where she built the Life Sciences division and product line from R&D to GtM to global product deployment across 180 countries. Her academic career began as a Bioinformatics scientist at the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI), National Institutes of Health (NIH). At NIH, Mileidy collaborated heavily with multi-disciplinary teams of researchers and clinicians across other NIH institutes contributing to a number of Flu and HIV vaccines. Dr. Giraldo holds a Ph.D. in Computational Biology from the University of Maryland and Post-doctoral and Research Fellowships from NCBI, NIH.