Deepak Aggarwal Research Infrastructure Engineer
As a member of the Research Computing team, Deepak is responsible for the development and maintenance of the University's Research Computing services.
Role
Deepak's primary focus is on elevating user engagement and empowering researchers to harness High-Performance Computing (HPC) systems with optimal efficiency through tailor-made solutions. He takes the lead in dynamic HPC outreach initiatives, solidifying the University's presence and influence in research computing.
Responsibilities
- Ensure effective, reliable, and continuous HPC operations
- Provide technical support to a diverse scientific community, overseeing Central Processing Unit (CPU) and Graphics Processing Unit (GPU) code compilation, debugging and optimisation
- Enable users to port their codes from energy-intensive CPU to GPU for improved performance and reduced environmental impact
- Collaborate with researchers to understand and address their requirements
- Work with the team for HPC outreach and user training
Career
Deepak began his professional journey as a nuclear analyst at the Institute for Plasma Research, India, contributing to the development of Indian tritium breeding blanket concepts for the ITER project as well as for the Indian Nuclear Fusion program. He contributed to the successful completion of the conceptual design review of the Indian blanket concept module for ITER in 2016.
Over the past seven years, Deepak's role has evolved into a multifaceted HPC system administrator. Initially, he played a pivotal role in the procurement, commissioning and benchmarking of a petascale HPC cluster. He successfully orchestrated the migration of scientific codes from old clusters to new ones, implementing containerisation and modules. He collaborated with NVIDIA, transitioning numerous CPU codes to run on GPU cards, and worked closely with the Intel team to assist users in optimising their scientific codes. As a proactive advocate for HPC adoption, he led initiatives to increase researchers' engagement, launching the monthly HPC newsletter, GANANAM in 2020, and organising regular workshops and boot camps.
Deepak has also personally undertaken several HPC projects as part of academic work, fostering collaboration with graduate students.
Education
- Technical Training in Fusion Technologies, Institute for Plasma Research, India
- MSc Physics, University of Delhi, India
- BSc (Hons) Physics, University of Delhi, India