XSEDE EMPOWER Receives Honor in 2021 HPCwire Awards

19th Annual HPCwire Awards Given to Leaders in the Global HPC Community

St. Louis, MO - November 15, 2021 - XSEDE EMPOWER has been recognized in the annual HPCwire Readers' and Editors' Choice Awards, presented at the 2021 International Conference for High Performance Computing, Networking, Storage and Analysis (SC21), in St. Louis, Missouri. The list of winners was revealed at the HPCwire booth at the event, and on the HPCwire website, located at www.HPCwire.com.

Led by the Shodor Education Foundation, EMPOWER ( Expert Mentoring Producing Opportunities for Work, Education, and Research ) is an undergraduate student program whose goal is to expand the community of advanced research computing by recruiting and enabling a diverse group of students who have the skills – or are interested in acquiring the skills – to participate in the work of the E xtreme Science and Engineering Discovery Environment ( XSEDE ) project, funded by the U.S. National Science Foundation ( NSF ).

EMPOWER was recognized by HPCwire with the Editors' Choice Award in Workforce Diversity and Inclusion Leadership. The coveted annual HPCwire Readers' and Editors' Choice Awards are determined through a nomination and voting process with the global HPCwire community, as well as selections from the HPCwire editors. The awards are an annual feature of the publication and constitute prestigious recognition from the HPC community and are revealed each year to kick off the annual supercomputing conference, which showcases high performance computing, networking, storage and data analysis.

"Every year it is our pleasure to connect with and honor the HPC community through our Readers' and Editors' Choice Awards, and 2021 marked an exceptional showing of industry innovation," said Tom Tabor, CEO of Tabor Communications, publisher of HPCwire. "Between our worldwide readership of HPC experts and an unparalleled panel of editors, the Readers' and Editors' Choice Awards represent resounding recognition throughout the industry. Our congratulations go out to all of the winners."

"Thank you so much to the editors of HPCwire for this award! We are so proud of the undergraduate students who have participated in our program, and so grateful to the community of mentors who have created meaningful experiences for them," said Aaron Weeden, Shodor's coordinator of the EMPOWER program, adding, "I would like to thank Bob Panoff and Jennifer Houchins at Shodor for setting the initial vision of the program. We have received so much support from the XSEDE leadership, in particular Linda Akli, Kelly Gaither, and John Towns, and we are so grateful for the funding support from the National Science Foundation."

More information on these awards can be found at the HPCwire website ( www.HPCwire.com ) or on Twitter through the following hashtag: #HPCwireAwards.

About HPCwire

HPCwire is the #1 news and information resource covering the fastest computers in the world and the people who run them. With a legacy dating back to 1986, HPCwire has enjoyed a legacy of world-class editorial and journalism, making it the news source of choice selected by science, technology and business professionals interested in high performance and data-intensive computing. Visit HPCwire at www.HPCwire.com.

About Shodor

Established in Durham, NC in 1994, Shodor is a nonprofit organization serving students and educators by providing materials and instruction relating to computational science (scientific, interactive computing).

With an Internet presence producing 3 to 4 million page views per month, Shodor has an international impact. Its award-winning, free online education tools such as Interactivate are popular with students and educators alike.

Shodor is transforming learning through computational thinking. In the Raleigh-Durham, NC area, Shodor offers workshops, apprenticeships and internships for youth and teens to build excitement for science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) through interactive explorations using hands-on and computer-enhanced activities, giving them the experience they will need to pursue a technology-intensive career path.