Anne Hammond
Director, Information Technology

Anne Hammond managed a high performance visualization lab at the University of Colorado, Boulder, associated with the Department of Astrophysical and Planetary Sciences, and NSF and NASA research projects.  As the interface between the nation's high performance computational centers, and the University research environment, she was involved in Grand Challenge Applications for data analysis and networking. Among other projects, the lab participated in GONG (Global Oscillations and Network Group), obtaining earth-based observations of the Sun; SOHO, a joint venture of the European Space Agency and NASA, for obtaining continuous space-based observations of the Sun; and ultimately developing the first solar weather maps, based on the techniques of helioseismology. The lab also participated in Access Grid, a collaborative multimedia resource project of the NSF; the development of NCAR's Visualization Lab; and the development of VAPOR, NCAR's Visualization and Analysis Platform for Ocean, atmosphere, and solar Researchers.

For these environments, Ms. Hammond specified the graphics engines and associated software, and set up the volumetric test data. Together the NCAR development team and scientists from the Laboratory for Computational Dynamics iterated on the user interface and features such as streamline primitives and wavelet- based multiresolution data representation for time-varying data. This produced some of the first movies of full-disk simulations of dynamo action in the Sun, and of rotating solar convection including the affects of magnetic fields.

Hammond implemented the distributed computing infrastructure at JILA, a joint institute of the University of Colorado and the National Bureau of Standards.  In this role, Anne evaluated research project computing and visualization requirements, and followed through to the acquisition of equipment and implementation of scientific codes. JILA is one of the nation's leading scientific institutes, and supports an eclectic and innovative research program, ranging from chemistry to quantum physics to astronomy, and is home to three Nobel prize recipients.

In 2004, Anne became involved with the Center for Integrated Plasma Studies, at the University of Colorado. As manager of the Center's research clusters, she researched parallel computing and storage requirements of the various user groups, eventually more than doubling the Center's parallel computing and data storage capacity.