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Education
Recent Positions
- Founding Executive Director and Member of the Governing Board,
Cyberinfrastructure Initiative in the State of New York, 2006-2007.
- Founding Director, Center
for Computational Research,
SUNY-Buffalo, 1998-2006.
- UB Distinguished Professor of
Computer Science and Engineering,
SUNY-Buffalo, 2001-present.
- Adjunct Professor of
Electrical Engineering,
SUNY-Buffalo, 1998-present.
- Adjunct Professor of
Structural Biology,
SUNY-Buffalo, 2001-present.
- Senior Research Scientist at the
Hauptman-Woodward Medical
Research Institute (HWI), 1992-present.
Selected Honors & Awards
- Inducted into Amherst (NY)
Avenue of Athletes for
``outstanding contributions in the
area of youth sports,'' June, 2005.
- Certificate of Recognition,
Career Services Office, University
at Buffalo, based on survey of
Graduates of the Class of 2003,
2005.
- SGI Innovator Award, one
of six in the inaugural class, 2003.
- Listed in
HPCwire 2003 Top People &
Organizations to Watch,
2003.
- International Scientist of
the Year, International
Biographical Centre, Cambridge,
England, 2003
- Best Practices Award,
Bio-IT World, 2003.
- Michael Dell presented CCR with
its first Dell Center in Research
Excellence, September, 2002.
- Elected as member to the
European Academy of Sciences
(Computer Science) with the citation
``for an outstanding and lasting
contribution
to parallel algorithms and computer
science education,'' August, 2002.
- Designated as UB
Distinguished Professor, State
University of New York at Buffalo,
April, 2002.
- Shake-and-Bake was
mentioned on the poster
``The Top Ten Algorithms of the
Century,''
published in Computing in Science
& Engineering, Nov/Dec, 2000,
produced in cooperation with the
IEEE and The Computer Museum History
Center.
- Best Presentation Award
for the 1987 International
Conference on Parallel Processing,
St. Charles, Illinois, August 17-21,
1987.
Scientific Accomplishments
Dr. Miller's research program is concerned with developing efficient
parallel algorithms to solve fundamental problems on a variety of
feasible parallel models of computation, developing efficient solutions
to computationally intensive problems, and developing and deploying necessary
infrastructure to support a persistent and transparent grid in order to
enable leading edge cyberinfrastructure.
Dr. Miller has co-authored seminal papers in a wide variety of areas,
incuding the following.
- In the area of mesh algorithms for critical problems in computational
geometry, image analysis, and generalized data movements, Miller and colleagues
provided asymptotically optimal algorithms that have been used as the basis
for numerous algorithms worldwide.
- In the area of pyramid computer algorithms for problems in
image analysis and generalized data movements, Miller and colleagues provided
asymptotically optimal algorithms and proved lower bounds for the pyramid
that were believed to be unobtainable.
- In the area of reconfigurable architectures, Miller and colleagues showed
that some algorithms could be performed faster on such architectures than on
a PRAM, a result that took many by surprise. In addition, the fundamental
algorithms presented for such reconfigurable and bus-based architectures has
served as the basis for numberous practical systems, including FPGAs.
- In the area of molecular structure determination, Miller and colleagues
have written seminal papers describing novel algorithms to solve critical
problems that were believed to be inherently unsolvable. Miller and colleagues
followed up this work by providing sequential, parallel, and grid-based
community codes that were adopted in over 500 labs worldwide and were used
to solve important structures such as antibiotics. This work
was recognized by its inclusion on the IEEE poster "Top Algorithms of the
20th Century."
Cyberinfrastructure Laboratory
Cyberinfrastructure sits at the
core of modern simulation and modeling, which allows
for entirely new methods of investigation that allow
scholars to address previously unsolvable problems.
Specifically, the development of necessary software,
algorithms, portals, and interfaces that will enable
research and scholarship by freeing end-users from
dealing with the complexity of various computing
environments is critical to extending the reach of
high-end computing, storage, networking, and
visualization to the general user community.
Miller's
Cyberinfrastructure Laboratory focuses on
such issues and is responsible for the creation of the ACDC-Grid, WNY Grid,
and NYS Grid. The NYS Grid serves as the foundation of
the New York State Cyberinfrastructure
Initiative (NYSGrid.org).
Accomplishments at CCR (1998-2006)
In 1997, Provost Headrick established
the
Ad-Hoc Task Force on High Performance Research
Computing at UB.
This committee was chaired by
Prof. Russ
Miller and included faculty and staff from across
campus. The final report from the committee
was submitted in April of 1998. Shortly
thereafter, Provost Headrick established the Center
for Computational Research, naming Dr. Miller as its
founding director.
In establishing the goals and mission of
CCR, Dr.
Miller followed the precedence set by the national
supercomputing centers, which he played a role in
establishing. This included the insight that
in the
21st century, leading academic institutions will
need to embrace the coming digital data-driven
society and empower students to compete in this
knowledge-based economy. With an extensive
background in high-performance computing (HPC), as well as input from faculty and staff
across campus, and with the support of President
Greiner and Provost Headrick, Miller set the course
for CCR as follows:
- support capability- and
capacity-based computationally-intensive research
- support high-end visualization
- provide high-end data storage
- support work that requires high-end networking
(grid computing)
- support traditional and non-traditional areas of
research and scholarship that require HPC
- develop close working
relationships with faculty who can take advantage of
HPC
- support education, outreach, and training both
on and off campus
- build bridges to the Western
New York community, including K-12 students, local
industry, academic and research institutions, government
agencies, and the general community in WNY
- build strong relationships with our elected
officials
CCR was enormously successful in all of these areas.
Highlights of CCR during Dr. Miller's tenure as
Director include the following:
- supporting a
peak of ~25TF of
computing
- supporting a peak of ~300TB
of data storage
- supporting
a wide variety of
high-end visualization devices
- supporting ~140 projects on an
annual basis, primarily in areas of simulation &
modeling, which includes data-driven tasks and visualization
- supporting work in
non-traditional areas including media study,
classics, architecture, law, anthropology,
management, animation, urban planning and design,
and so forth
- supporting projects covering ~40
academic departments
- providing 30 FTEs to support
the user community, including
- computational scientists who
worked directly with the users
- visualization specialists who
worked with traditional and non-traditional users,
companies, and agencies inside and outside of UB
- database administrators and
storage support personnel who worked with users on
significant storage issues of acquisition,
management, and processing of data
- programmers who worked with
the staff and users to create and maintain software
- system adminstrators who
worked to keep the systems operating at maximum
capabilities
- administrative personnel who
served as the interface between CCR, the users,
companies, government agencies, et., in managing
grants & contracts, budgets, payroll, travel,
training, and so forth
- developing and supporting
special purpose systems in areas that include
bioinformatics, data storage, and data mining
- supporting projects involving a
variety of local and national colleges, universities,
non-profit organizations, government agencies, and
private sector companies and organizations
- creating private sector jobs in
Western New York
- supporting traditional and high-end (Access
Grid) video conferencing
- supporting summer workshops for
WNY high-school students
- developing and supporting
programs for a diverse group of area high-schools
- supporting a large number of WNY
projects involving visualization of urban planning and design
- serving as the backbone for
the establishment of the Center of Excellence in
Bioinformatics
- supporting a local company and
providing national visibility for UB through efforts
that included producing nearly 30 videos for MTV
- supported highly visible
projects in New York State including visualization
of new options for the Peace Bridge, new options for
toll plazas on the Thruway, new options for
Main St
in Buffalo, new options for the Medical Campus, and
new options for Buffalo's Olmsted Parks, to name a
few
- supporting the efforts of a
variety of New York State agencies
- establishing excellent
relationships with our elected officials and the
city of Buffalo
- serving to bring together
users from across campus to work on interesting
projects
The financial impact that CCR had on UB and the region
during this period was substantial:
- CCR was leveraged to bring in ~$170M of external
funds to the University
- CCR was leveraged to
bring in ~$140M of in-kind contributions to the
University
- CCR was leveraged to
bring in ~$500M of funds (grants,
appropriations, in-kind, etc.) into Western New York
Dr. Miller and CCR were internationally recognized in a variety of
ways during this period, bringing national
prominence to UB:
- CCR was routinely ranked as
one of the top supercomputing centers in the world
and viewed as the template of what universities
needed to do to support 21st century discovery as
well as supporting local and regional efforts of
economic development
- Dr. Miller was listed in HPCWire
as one of the
Top People & Organizations to Watch in
2003
- Dr. Miller served the national
community:
- Chair of the NSF
Committee for TeraGrid (ETF/Core) Panel Review, 2004
- Chair of the NSF
review committee for Partnerships for Advanced
Computational Infrastructure (PACI), 2001, 2002,
2003, 2004
- Chair of the NSF
panel for Extensible Terascale Facility (ETF) for
the Partnerships for Advanced Computational
Infrastructure (PACI), 2002, 2004
- Member of the NSF
panel for the Distributed Terascale Facility, 2001
- Member of the NSF
review committee for Partnerships for Advanced
Computational Infrastructure (PACI), 1999, 2000
- Dr. Miller received the Best
Practices Award from Bio-IT World in 2003
- Dr. Miller was a member of Dell’s HPC
Board, 2004-2005
- Dr. Miller was inducted as a member of the
European Academy of Sciences in 2002
- Dr. Miller was awarded
International Scientist of the Year; Cambridge,
England in 2003
- Dr. Miller served on the
infoTech
Niagara Board of Directors from 2002-2005
- CCR was awarded the first Dell Center of Research Excellence
in 2002
Dr. Miller is most grateful to the
talented and energetic staff at CCR. He is
also appreciative of the support provided by
Pres. Greiner, Provosts Headrick, Triggle, and Capaldi,
Gov. Pataki, Senator Clinton, and Congressman
Reynolds, to name a
few. In addition, the efforts of UB's Goverment
Relations division, including Janet Penksa and Mike Pietkiewicz, were
absolutely critical to the success of CCR.
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