The productivity of projects in high-performance computing (HPC) and computational science and engineering (CSE) is significantly impacted by the ability of large, multidisciplinary teams to work together—to collaborate ethically and trustfully, to communicate with clarity and empathy, and to be inspired to contribute authentically and with enthusiasm and thoughtfulness. Inclusivity and inclusive practices play key roles in facilitating all of that and more. Likewise, the lack of attention to inclusivity and inclusive practices can dramatically negatively impact scientific productivity. Topics central to diversity, equity, and inclusivity such as gender identity, sexual harassment, and racism can sometimes overshadow our perception of many other dimensions to inclusivity such as neurodivergence (15-20% prevalence), mobility impairment (16%), handedness (10%), dyslexia/dyscalculia (3-7%), color vision deficiency (5%) or other visual impairment (1%-40%) or hearing impairment (15%) to name a few. Inclusivity and inclusive practices can play a role in improving almost every aspect of a scientific computing project. The benefits of inclusive practices include reducing barriers to adoption, increasing a product’s reach, improving productivity, increasing innovation, attracting and retaining a wider talent pool, and improving job satisfaction. This presentation will outline a long list of concrete, inclusive practices that scientific computing projects can easily incorporate into existing activities and plans, which will have a positive impact on productivity and sustainability. If logistics permit, we’ll end with in a short Kahoot! game to inspire further dialog.
This event is co-sponsored by the HPC-Workforce Action group, whose mission is to enable the Department of Energy National Laboratories and their related computing communities to share insight for inclusive and equitable workforce development for scientific computing.
Presenter
- Mark C Miller (Applications, Simulations and Quality Division, Lawrence Livermore National Lab)
Presenter Bio
Mark C Miller has participated in the development of a number of scientific database and data modeling technologies, including Silo, ASCI-DMF, HDF5, ITAPS and most recently the MACSio scalable I/O proxy application. Mark has been the lead developer of Silo since the late 90’s, supporting scalable I/O requirements of LLNL HPC simulation codes, including ALE3D, Kull, Ares, LASNEX, Overlink and VisIt. Mark’s expertise includes data models and their impact on software interoperability, high-performance I/O, and software quality engineering for HPC libraries. Mark is passionate about the history of computing and the role of inclusion in the success of scientific computing projects.