Marc Snir

Marc Snir is a Professor at the University of Illinois’s Siebel School of Computing and Data Science. He has led significant research contributions in high-performance parallel computing, including work on the Message Passing Interface (MPI) and IBM’s SP scalable parallel system. As Department Head from 2001–2007, he oversaw the transition to the Siebel Center and expanded the department’s capabilities. He later served as the first director of the Illinois Informatics Institute, chief software architect for the Blue Waters supercomputer, and co-director of the Universal Parallel Computing Research Center (UPCRC). His research focuses on parallel computing systems, fault resilience, and I/O optimizations. He has been recognized with the 2014 Distinguished Alumni Service Award.

His work spans exascale computing, distributed systems, and machine learning applications in HPC. He has contributed to projects like Argo (an exascale OS/runtime), Aluminum (a GPU-aware communication library), and LCI (Lightweight Communication Interface). His research emphasizes improving scalability, energy efficiency, and reliability in high-performance systems.

He has advised numerous students (names not listed here) and led teams in advancing HPC tools and methodologies. His involvement in initiatives like UPCRC and the Blue Waters project underscores his commitment to bridging theoretical research and practical applications in computing.