Mike Gowanlock is an associate professor in the School of Informatics, Computing, and Cyber Systems at Northern Arizona University. He obtained his PhD in Computer Science from the University of Hawaii at Manoa in 2015, and was a postdoctoral associate at MIT Haystack Observatory from 2015-2017. Mike Gowanlock is interested in parallel, high performance, and data-intensive computing, general purpose computing on graphics processing units, astronomy, and astrobiology.
Computer Science: I have been designing multi-dimensional data access methods for graphics processing units (GPUs), which exploit the GPU’s high on-card memory bandwidth and massive parallelism. Additionally, I have worked on hybrid CPU/GPU algorithms for several domains. Other recent projects include applying high performance computing to cybersecurity.
Astroinformatics: I am working on a Solar System alert broker for the Rubin Observatory, the Solar System Notification Alert Processing System (SNAPS). SNAPS will rely on parallel multi-core CPU and GPU-accelerated near real-time outlier detection algorithms to detect interesting events on small bodies in the Solar System.
Astrobiology: I am interested in the regions of the Galaxy expected to have the highest carrying capacity for land-based complex life, and other astrobiological questions at large scales.
Prospective Students
Education
Academic Experience
Undergraduate
Graduate
Data-intensive Parallel Computing Pedagogic Modules: Part of the NSF-funded project (Grant No. 1849559) includes pedagogic modules for teaching parallel and high performance computing using data-intensive applications. These modules can be integrated into courses at the undergraduate and graduate levels.
I would like to thank several sponsors for supporting my research, including ABOR, AFRL, ARL, DOE, NASA, and NSF.
Collaborative Research: OAC Core: Efficient Indexing and Similarity Searches Exploiting Processing-in-Memory Architectures for Memory-Bound Scientific Workloads
Agency: National Science Foundation
Role: PI
Budget Period: 07/15/2024-06/30/2027
Amount: $\small{$}$296,664
Grant No. 2402988
Note: Collaborative project with Satish Puri, PI, $\small{$}$303,328 Grant No. 2402987.
Research Opportunities for Underrepresented Minority Students in Data-Intensive Parallel Computing
Agency: Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Department of Energy
Role: PI
Budget Period: 05/24/2023-03/31/2028
Amount: $\small{$}$373,711
Grant No: B657367
Cognitive Distributed Sensing in Congested Radio Frequency Environments
Agency: Army Research Office (subcontract from Northeastern University)
Role: co-PI (PI: Cambou; co-PIs: Heynssens, Nghiem, Yacaman)
Budget Period: 03/31/2023-03/30/2027
Amount: $\small{$}$8,400,000
Note: Leading subproject on key distribution and recovery in noisy distributed networks which leverages high performance computing for communication in noisy environments.
The Arizona Tree Stress Explorer and Alert System
Agency: Arizona Board of Regents
Role: co-PI (PI: Shenkin; co-PIs: Doughty, Goetz, Hakkenberg)
Budget Period: 01/01/2023-12/31/2025
Amount: $\small{$}$1,259,942
Rapid response asteroid science from ZTF and LSST data
Agency: National Science Foundation
Role: Sr. Personnel (PI: David Trilling)
Budget Period: 8/01/2022-7/31/2025
Amount: $\small{$}$452,885
Grant No. 2206796
GPU-Accelerated Outlier Detection: Comparing Exact and Approximate Algorithms
Agency: Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Department of Energy
Role: PI
Budget Period: 08/19/2021-08/30/2022
Amount: $\small{$}$48,898
Grant No: B648568
CAREER: Exploiting Parallel Heterogeneous Architectures to Enable Time-domain Astronomy in the LSST era
Agency: National Science Foundation
Role: PI, Collaborators: David Trilling, Tom Matheson, and Trent D’Hooge.
Budget Period: 07/15/2021 - 06/30/2026
Amount: $\small{$}$411,964
Grant No.: 2042155
Project Website
HPC GPU Optimizations for K-means Clustering
Agency: Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Department of Energy
Role: PI
Budget Period: 08/20/2020 - 08/31/2021
Amount: $\small{$}$49,894
Grant No.: B643087
Comprehensive development of ternary computing technology modules for the implementation of secure computational diversity
Agency: Air Force Research Lab
Role: co-PI (PI: Bertrand Cambou)
Proposed Budget Period: 6/01/2019 - 5/31/2022
Amount: $\small{$}$3,330,546
Note: Leading subproject on high performance computing for cybersecurity.
An Outlier Detection and Alert Processing System For Time-Domain Astronomy
Agency: Arizona Board of Regents (Regents’ Innovation Fund)
Role: Lead PI between NAU, ASU, and UA (PIs: John Kececioglu (UA), Nat Butler (ASU), co-PIs at NAU: David Trilling, Chad Trujillo, and Cristina Thomas)
Budget Period: 7/1/2019 – 8/15/2021
Amount: $\small{$}$299,000
CRII: OAC: A Framework for Parallel Data-Intensive Computing on Emerging Architectures and Astroinformatics Applications
Agency: National Science Foundation
Role: PI (Collaborator: Chad Trujillo)
Budget Period: 03/15/2019 – 02/28/2022
Amount: $\small{$}$174,975
Grant No. 1849559
Project Website
Interdisciplinary Research Metrics in Astrobiology
Agency: NASA Astrobiology Institute Director’s Discretionary Fund
Role: co-I (PI: Rich Gazan)
Awarded: October, 2012. $\small{$}$29,849.
Current Lab Group Members
Research Software Engineer
Graduate Students
Alumni
2024
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2013
2011