Edward Seidel, Ph.D
Director of the Center For Computation and Technology

Ed Seidel’s CV

Edward Seidel is a physicist recognized worldwide for his work on numerical relativity and black holes, as well as in high-performance and grid computing. In 2003, LSU recruited Seidel to lead its investment in the Governor's Information Technology Initiative, and he became director of LSU's newly formed Center for Computation & Technology. Seidel also is the Floating Point Systems Professor in LSU's Departments of Physics & Astronomy and Computer Science. In addition to leading the CCT, he helped initiate, and is presently the chief scientist for, the $40M Louisiana Optical Network Initiative.

Seidel earned his Ph.D. from Yale University in relativistic astrophysics. Prior to becoming CCT director, Seidel was a professor at the Max-Planck-Institute for Gravitational Physics (Albert-Einstein-Institute, or AEI) in Germany from 1996-2003. There, Seidel founded and led AEI's numerical relativity and e-science groups, which became leading forces worldwide in solving Einstein's equations using large-scale computers, and in distributed and grid computing. He still maintains a strong affiliation with AEI. LSU and the AEI numerical relativity and computational science groups still work very closely together.

He also was a senior research scientist at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications and associate professor in the Physics Department at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.

Seidel’s Awards:

2008 Internet 2 Board of Trustees, Discipline Researcher Representative

2007 Fellow of the American Physical Society

2006 Recipient, Sidney Fernbach Award

2004 Rising Star of the Year, Louisiana Governor's Technology Awards

2001 Gordon Bell Prize

1998 Heinz-Billing-Preis of the Max-Planck-Gesellschaft

Winner of various HPC Challenge awards at SC98, SC01 and SC02.