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Call for applications to join the DiRAC Technical Directorate

The DiRAC Project Board invites applications for membership of the DiRAC Technical Directorate (TD) from June 2023. There is currently one vacant position on the TD.

The TD comprises between 3 and 5 senior members of the DiRAC community that have appropriate expertise in both scientific and technical domains. The Terms of Reference for the Directorate are included below (Annex 1).

Background:

The TD was established in early 2020 to carry out the activities previously associated with the role of DiRAC Technical Director, particularly in the areas of technical foresight, software benchmarking and advice to the DiRAC Director on technical strategy. The TD played a key role in the successful delivery of the DiRAC-3 Phase 1 deployments in 2020/21 and the nature of its remit in supporting the facility expanded as a result. This is reflected in the terms of reference.

Funding is available to support DiRAC Technical Directorate membership, at the level of 0.1 FTE per member and 0.15 FTE for each co-chair.

The current membership of the Technical Directorate is:

Alastair Basden (Durham; co-Chair)

Antonin Portelli (Edinburgh; co-Chair)

Biagio Lucini (Swansea)

Jeremy Yates (UCL)

1       Job description

The roles and responsibilities of members of the DiRAC Technical Directorate are:

1. Attend virtual (1-hour) TD meetings regularly (currently fortnightly but usually monthly).
2. Provide technical advice and information to the Director and other members of the DiRAC facility management team.
3. Contribute to the development and writing of the DiRAC Technical Case, proposing a set of future service requirements to the DiRAC Project Board for adoption as the DiRAC technical plan for the next generation of services.
4. Maintain up-to-date knowledge of future computing technology roadmaps and their relevance to DiRAC workflows.
5. Identify potential opportunities for innovation activities with industry partners to enhance DiRAC preparedness to adopt appropriate new technologies.

2       Person specifications

Applicants should be able to demonstrate some or all of the following:

• Proven record of HPC use in a DiRAC research domain;
• Strong research record in a PPAN research area;
• Knowledge of, and interest in, current HPC technology developments;
• Excellent oral and written communication skills;
• Engagement with the DiRAC research community;
• Leadership of innovation or industrial engagement activities with HPC technology partners.

3       Funding

To support the above activities, funding of up to 0.1 FTE will be offered to members of the Technical Directorate during their tenure on the directorate.

4       Application process

4.1      Applications

To apply, applicants should submit a CV together with a brief statement on their suitability for membership of the DiRAC Technical Directorate, including their reasons for applying, their areas of HPC technical expertise/knowledge, the name(s) of two referees who would be willing to provide information to the panel on your previous experience in the areas of activity proposed for the directorate.

Statements should be no more than 2 sides of A4 and conform to the usual STFC regulations on style (font size, margins etc).

4.2      Closing date

Applications should be submitted electronically to the DiRAC Director (miw6@leicester.ac.uk) by 5pm on 7^th June 2023.

4.3      Eligibility

All applicants must be eligible to work in the UK and currently based in the UK.

4.4      Assessment process:

The appointment panel will consist of Luigi del Debbio (Chair of DiRAC Project Board), Mark Hannam (Co-Chair of DiRAC Project Board), Mark Wilkinson (DiRAC Director) and representative(s) of the current TD membership.

Consideration of applications will begin on 8^th June 2023. The appointment panel reserves the right to seek further applications after the closing date if no suitable applications are received by the closing date. The process will remain open until at a new TD member has been appointed.

All appointments will commence no later than 1^st Oct 2023.

Unsuccessful candidates will be informed of the outcome of their applications by the later of June 28^th or three weeks after their application is received (for applications submitted later than the 7^th June closing date).

We welcome applications from everyone, particularly from those who have a protected characteristic as defined by the Equalities Act (2010), which provides the legal framework to tackle disadvantage and discrimination.  

These protected characteristics are age, disability, gender reassignment, race, religion or belief, sex, sexual orientation, marriage and civil partnership, and pregnancy and maternity.  

The application procedure for this position requires the submission of a CV and personal statement.   Please use these to bring to our attention anything we should know about e.g. disability or maternity, so that both the selection process and any subsequent employment can be reasonably adjusted to take account of anything you bring to our attention that you feel may disadvantage your application.

4.5      Additional information

Informal enquiries about this position on the Technical Directorate should be sent to the DiRAC Director, Mark Wilkinson (miw6@leicester.ac.uk).

Annex 1: DiRAC Technical Directorate Terms of Reference (Oct 2022)

Membership: Co-chairs; Director of Innovation & Technology; 1-3 additional DiRAC community experts.

Meetings: As required, at least monthly (currently fortnightly)

Roles and Responsibilities

1. Provide technical advice and information to the Director and other members of the DiRAC facility management team.
2. Lead the development and writing of the DiRAC Technical Case, proposing a set of future service requirements to the DiRAC Project Board for adoption as the DiRAC technical plan for the next generation of services.
3. At least one representative to attend all TWG meetings.
4. At least one representative at both Supercomputing and/or International Supercomputing events annually.
5. Maintain up-to-date knowledge of future technology roadmaps and their relevance to DiRAC workflows through regular contact with HPC industry providers.
6. Identify potential opportunities for innovation activities with industry partners to enhance DiRAC preparedness to adopt appropriate new technologies.
7. Receive and discuss reports from Technical Manager(s).
8. Approve allocations of the technical fund to support TWG activities.
9. Develop and maintain DiRAC security policies.
10. Provide oversight of maintenance of the technical risk register by the Technical Manager.
11. Approve new innovation projects and re-prioritisation of technical activities.
12. Approve procurement plans for any DiRAC service procurement.
13. Establish a procurement oversight board (POB) for any DiRAC service procurement, with Technical Directorate representation at any POB meeting.
14. Oversee the technical commissioning of any new service and manage the allocation of commissioning projects.
15. Take and upload minutes to the DiRAC document repository for Technical Directorate meetings.
16. Oversee development of DiRAC strategic technical roadmaps, e.g. software roadmap.
17. Review plans from DiRAC Management for technical activities and make recommendations to the Project Board and/or DiRAC Management, e.g. DRI funding for DiRAC Federation projects.
18. Oversee the benchmarking of DiRAC systems and codes prior to and during procurements for all DiRAC services
19. The group will nominate a chair, or 2 co-chairs, who is/are responsible for ensuring that the group carries out its functions and that all reporting and technical case preparations are completed on time.
20. The performance of the Technical Directorate is reviewed regularly by the DiRAC Project Board.

The hackathon is a 3-day event where most of the time will be spent on enhancing your project codes.

A 3-day pre-event training for all those that would like to attend will be as follows

Pre-event training 20th March

Time	Topic
13:00 – 13:10	AMD Presentation Intro
13:10 – 13:20	Brief Introduction to AMD Architecture
13:20 – 14:10	Getting Started with OpenMP® Offload Applications on AMD Accelerators
14:10 – 14:40	OpenMP® exercises
14:40 – 14:50	Break
14:50 – 15:00	OpenACC
15:00 – 16:00	Advanced OpenMP® offloading
16:00 – 16:30	Advanced OpenMP® Exercises
16:30 – 16:40	Break
16:40 – 16:55	Mixing HIP and OpenMP®
16:55 – 17:00	Wrapup

Pre-event training 21st March

Time	Topic
13:00 – 13:30	AMD Communication Fabrics and GPU-Aware MPI
13:30 – 13:45	GPU Aware Exercises
13:45 – 14:00	Break
14:00 – 14:40	AMD Node Memory Model
14:40 – 15:00	Memory Model Exercises
15:00 – 15:15	Break
15:15 – 16:15	Affinity — Placement, Ordering and Binding
16:15 – 16:40	Affinity exercises
16:40 – 16:55	Infinity Hub/HPC Community
16:55 – 17:00	Wrapup

Pre-event training 22nd March

13:00 – 13:20	Introduction to Rocprof
13:20 – 13:35	Rocprof Exercises
13:35 – 14:00	Introduction to Omnitrace
14:00 – 14:15	Omnitrace Exercises
14:15 – 14:25	Break
14:25 – 15:25	Roofline
15:25 – 15:55	Introduction to Omniperf
15:55 – 16:10	Exercises – Omniperf
16:10 – 16:20	Break

Extra

Intro to AMD Instinct Accelerators.mp4

Research Image Competition 2022

DiRAC is excited to launch our inaugural research image competition and encourage our past and present users to submit aesthetically inspiring and scientifically interesting imagery which has been generated using the DiRAC facility over the past three years.

Themes:

Theme 1: Particle and Nuclear Physics

Theme 2: Astronomy, Cosmology and Solar & Planetary Science

Any imagery submitted to this competition could be used in future marketing/publicity materials relating to DiRAC in either digital or print and as such, should have visual impact and scientific interest. We will be producing a 2023 DiRAC image calendar, the imagery for which will be drawn from the submissions to this competition and a selection of the top images will be displayed in print at our annual DiRAC Science Day event.

Entry requirements:

• Images must be generated as a result of research work carried out using the DiRAC facility
• Images should not be older than three years
• Digital images must be submitted in one of the following formats: JPEG, TIFF, PNG or PDF
• All entries must be accompanied by an entry form (see details below)
• Entires should be accompanied by a short description, of no more than 150 words, giving scientific context to the image
• Images may be generated specifically for this competition, but should result from research performed within the last 3 years
• Author names should be included
• Up to three submissions may be made per person
• Images should be of a sufficient size and resolution (300 dpi minimum)
• File sizes should not be larger than 15mb
• Competition opens 1st Sept
• The deadline for submissions is 5pm, Friday 14th October

Judging

• Dr Clare Jenner (Chair), DiRAC Deputy Director
• Dr Jonathan Allday, Teacher and Science Writer
  • Author of Quarks, Leptons and the Big Bang and Space-time
• Prof Peter Coles, Maynooth University
  • Peter is an author and runs the In The Dark science blog
• Prof Lucie Green, University College London
  • Lucie is a Science broadcaster and former presenter of The Sky at Night
• Prof Tara Shears, University of Liverpool
  • Tara has worked with the Arts Catalyst visual arts project
• Georgina Ellis, Q Associates
  • Senior Account Manager

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Submissions are now closed

Queries can be directed to Simon Hands, DiRAC Community Director