Career in Brief
Kalyan Perumalla is the Founder and President of Discrete Computing, Inc specializing in advanced computing solutions.
He was previously a Distinguished Research Staff Member (elevated to Band 5 in 2014) at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), a US Department of Energy laboratory, in the Computer Science and Mathematics Division.
His additional appointments include serving as Joint Full Professor in the School of Industrial and Systems Engineering at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, as Adjunct Professor in the School of Computational Sciences and Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology, and as Adjunct Professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. He also serves on the Special Interest Group Governing Board of the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) as the elected chair for ACM Special Interest Group in Simulation (SIGSIM).
Prior to his 17-year career at ORNL, he held full-time research faculty appointments for 8 years at the Georgia Institute of Technology. Among other notable engagements, he served as Fellow of the Institute of Advanced Study at Durham University, UK, and as member of the National Academies’ Technical Advisory Boards for the U.S. Army Research Laboratory.
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PhD, Computer Science, 1999
Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA, USA
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MS, Computer Science, 1993
University of Central Florida, Orlando, FL, USA
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BE, Mechanical Engineering, 1991
Osmania University, Hyderabad, India
Affiliations
Dr. Perumalla has over 25 years of full-time experience in leading basic and applied research and development in the intersection of advanced computing, fundamental theory, and scalable software systems across several application areas.
His affiliations reflect expertise spanning
- computer science and mathematics
- industrial and systems engineering
- computational sciences and engineering, and
- electrical and computer engineering.
Elevated to Band 5 in June 2014 (Band 6 = Corporate Fellow)
Responsibilities include initiation, planning and managing major research programs or projects; broad responsibility guided by unit goals, policies, procedures and strategy; exercise of considerable latitude in determining objectives and approach to work assignments; influences top management in determining unit goals and objectives; performance of work managed by results; development of new client relationships; management of full range of research services in most complex problems; competence with all standard and advanced equipment, systems, policies and work methods; maintenance of international reputation for knowledge in speciality; establishment of track record in pushing the edge of knowledge; advanced knowledge of wide range of principles, theories, professional competencies and research methods; advanced knowledge of other disciplines and functions; handling most complex, diverse and impactful problems with original solutions and integration/coordination of disciplines, functions and staff; application of considerable judgement and professional competency; and achievement and maintenance of reputation as key contributor to major programs; externally recognized expertise in one or more fields.
Performing research, advising doctoral students, leading sponsored research projects
- Performing interdisciplinary research in the Epiphany term under the theme Emergence
- Collaborating with some of the best in the world in philosophy, art, anthropology, and history, including the Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of the American Philosophical Association
- View all fellows in cohort
Advising graduate students, supervising research assistants, teaching senior undergraduate course, performing externally sponsored research, serving as co-PI on multiple projects, performing collaborative research within and outside Georgia Tech
Research in large-scale network modeling, high- performance simulation, compilers and Department of Defense (DoD) High Level Architecture (HLA) federations
Management and Leadership
Dr. Perumalla served as manager and founding group leader over a period of 10 years.
Founding and managing the group of research staff with advanced degrees; formulating vision and mission; designing strategic plan, analysis of technical strengths, weaknesses, opportunites and threats; maintaining human capital management plans; personnel performance evaluations/appraisals and development plans; promotion processes, salary recommendations; time entry and accounting; budget preparation and tracking; absence policies; oversight of administrative assistants; interaction with human resources personnel; incentivizing with avenues such as significant awards; sensitivity to legal, programmatic, personal, and technical considerations; procurement and purchasing; travel and project approvals; ergonomics and safety compliance; hosting visitors; recruitment, interviewing, and external representation; and other responsibilities.
Professional Biography
Dr. Kalyan Perumalla is the Founder and President of Discrete Computing, Inc.
Prior to his current venture, he was a Distinguished Research Staff Member (Band 5 since 2014) at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL, a US Department of Energy laboratory) in the Computer Science and Mathematics Division.
His additional appointments include serving as Joint Full Professor in the School of Industrial and Systems Engineering at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, as Adjunct Professor in the School of Computational Sciences and Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology, and as Adjunct Professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.
He also serves on the Special Interest Group Governing Board of the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) as the elected chair for ACM Special Interest Group in Simulation (SIGSIM).
He held full-time research faculty appointments 1997-2005 at the Georgia Institute of Technology. He also served as Fellow of the Institute of Advanced Study at Durham University, UK, and as member of the National Academies’ Technical Advisory Boards for the U.S. Army Research Laboratory.
Dr. Perumalla is among the first recipients of the U.S. Department of Energy Early Career Award in Advanced Scientific Computing Research ($2.5 million for research over 5 years). Over the past 23 years, he has served as a principal investigator (PI) or co-PI on several research projects sponsored by agencies including the Department of Energy, Department of Homeland Security, Air Force, DARPA, Army Research Laboratory, National Science Foundation, and industry.
His major areas of technical contributions include scalable parallel/distributed software systems, high-performance computing, GPU accelerated computing, parallel discrete event simulation, reversible computing, cyber-physical systems, and applications of machine learning.
He is the author of “Introduction to Reversible Computing,” a seminal book in the fundamental theory and analysis of energy in computation. He co-authored another book, three book chapters, and about 150 articles in conferences and journals. He has delivered several advanced tutorials and lectures in defense simulation technologies, parallel systems, and reversible computing. Five (5) of his co-authored papers received the best paper awards, in 1999, 2002, 2005, 2008, and 2014.
Dr. Perumalla serves on international conference program committees and editorial boards of journals. He also held leadership roles as program chair or co-chair of multiple international conferences spanning areas from parallel simulation to cybersecurity.
Some of his research tools in parallel and distributed computing have been disseminated to research institutions worldwide. His algorithms and software prototypes have been scaled to over 200,000 processor cores and 1000s of GPUs on large supercomputing systems, including the Oak Ridge Leadership Computing Facility’s Jaguar, Titan, and Summit series of supercomputers.
Dr. Perumalla earned his Ph.D. in computer science from the Georgia Institute of Technology in 1999. He has earned certifications in Agile Development technologies as Certified ScrumMaster, Certified Scrum Product Owner, Certified Scrum-at-Scale Practitioner, and Certified SAFe Scaled Agile Practitioner.
He holds an active Q Security Clearance.
Training
Areas of Interests
Fundamentals of Computation and Energy Mathematical Modeling and Simulation Methods Parallel Algorithms Parallel Combinatorial Optimization Discrete Event Methods Exascale Computing Scalability of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning Systems (ML) Reversible Computing Computer Modeling and Simulation of Man-made Systems Electric Grids Intelligent Transportation Virtual Machine Technology Cloud Computing Cyberphysical Systems Digital Twins Cyber Security/Network Simulation Parallel and Distributed Systems Image Processing Domain Specific Languages and Compilers
Awards
Awards
- Division’s Significant Technical Contribution Award, “in recognition of the most Significant Technical Contribution by Advancing the Field of Reversible Computing,” Computer Science and Mathematics Division, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, December 2017.
- Division’s Best Publication Award, Computational Sciences and Engineering Division, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, July 2014.
- Best Paper Award Winner, lead author, paper on Simulating Billion-Task Parallel Programs in the SCS Summer Simulation Conference, International Symposium on Performance Evaluation of Computer and Telecommunication Systems, July 2014.
- Best Paper Award Finalist, co-author, paper on Efficiently Scheduling Multi-core Guest Virtual Machines on Multi-core Hosts in Network Simulation in the ACM/IEEE/SCS Workshop on Principles of Advanced and Distributed Simulation, July 2011.
- Best Paper Award Finalist, lead author, paper on Reversible Parallel Discrete Event Execution of Large-scale Epidemic Outbreak Models in the ACM/IEEE/SCS Workshop on Principles of Advanced and Distributed Simulation, June 2010.
- Best Paper Award Finalist, lead author, paper on Agent Simulations on Multi-GPU and Multi-Core Clusters in the ICST International Conference on Simulation Techniques and Tools, March 2010.
- DOE Career Award Winner, FY 2010-2015, ReveR-SES: Reversible Software Systems, announced January 2010
- One of the 69 selected from a national pool of over 2200 pre-proposals and over 1500 proposals
- One of only two awarded in the inaugural year of the program (2010) to national laboratories for research in advanced scientific computing research.
- Best Paper Award Winner, co-author, paper on Agent Simulations on GPUs in the SCS Spring Simulation Multi-Conference, April 2008.
- Significant Event Award, “Largest and Fastest PDES Executions on the Blue Gene Supercomputer,” Oak Ridge National Laboratory, September 2007, recognized by the Associate Laboratory Director (Thomas Zacharia).
- Best Project Poster Winner, member of team led by John Stovall in the “Electric Grid Real-time Monitoring & Visualization” project, among Oak Ridge National Laboratory-Directed R&D projects of 2003-2006, November 2006, recognized by the Laboratory Director (Jeffreey Wadsworth).
- Best Paper Award Winner, co-author, paper on Plasma Simulations in the ACM/IEEE/SCS Workshop on Parallel & Distributed Simulation, June 2005.
- Best Paper Award Winner, co-author, paper on Updateable Simulation in the ACM/IEEE/SCS Workshop on Parallel & Distributed Simulation, May 2002.
- Best Paper Award Winner, co-author, paper on Reverse Computation in the ACM/IEEE/SCS Workshop on Parallel & Distributed Simulation, May 1999.
- Contest Winning Teams and Honorable Mentions, Programming team coach, Georgia Tech: Coached ACM programming teams 1993-2000. Teams placed 1st among 60-70 teams in ACM Southeast Regional Programming Contests in 1994, 1998 and 1999. Team placed 10th in 1995 World Finals. Teams placed 1st in IBM Java Challenge 1999 and 2000.
- Programming team member, University of Central Florida: Team placed 2nd in the ACM Southeast Regional Programming Contest, 1992.
Award Nominations
- R&D100 Award Finalist, “HELICS: Hierarchical Engine for Large-scale Infrastructure Co-Simulation,” with other DOE labs led by PNNL, April 2019.
- UT-Battelle Awards Night, nominated four consecutive years (2010-2013) as the best division-level candidate from the Computational Sciences and Engineering Division (out of ~150 research staff members), Oak Ridge National Laboratory, in the category of scientific research.
Gallery
