The University of Texas at El Paso - UTEP Magazine

Super
computing
!
Photo courtesy of SC08
Mega computer company CEO Michael Dell of Dell Inc., accepts an official
jacket from UTEP professor Pat Teller. Teller chaired the SC08 conference,
which attracted over 11,000 participants from around the globe.
Viva!
Celebrating
Mexican
Theater
Kirsten F. Nigro, Ph.D.
More than 300 theater buffs from across the
United States, Europe and Mexico attended
UTEP’s Bi-National Celebration of Contemporary
Mexican Theatre last fall.
Playwrights, directors and scholars participated
in a series of workshops, lectures and play
readings during the four-day conference. The
event coincided with the XXIX Muestra Nacional
de Teatro in Ciudad Juárez, a national theater
showcase that presented theatrical works from
notable playwrights such as Victor Hugo and
Emilio Carballido.
The conference was the brainchild of Kirsten
F. Nigro, Ph.D., who is a professor and chair of
UTEP’s Department of Languages and Linguistics.
“I felt it was really important to do a binational
event,” she says. “I wanted to celebrate
Mexico and bring the richness of Mexican theater
to campus.”
A highlight of the conference was a reading
of the play Papa Esta en Atlandida/Our Dad is
in Atlantis, performed by UTEP students Oscar
Garcia and Raul Munoz. The conference was
hosted in collaboration with the Instituto Chihuahuense
de la Cultura, the Instituto Nacional
de Bellas Artes and the XXIX Muestra Nacional
de Teatro, Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua.
Pat Teller, Ph.D.
UTEP Professor Heads
Supercomputing Conference
The SC08 international supercomputing conference filled the
Austin Convention Center with a record-setting 11,000 attendees
and 337 exhibitors, a proud achievement for the
event’s lead organizer, UTEP Professor of Computer Science Pat
Teller.
For one week in November, Austin was transformed into a computer
science mecca, as thousands arrived to wrap their hands and
minds around the latest in high-performance computing technology.
As general chair of SC08, Teller spent the last three years working
with hundreds of her colleagues across the country to put on an
unforgettable event that also marked the conference’s 20th anniversary.
“It was an opportunity and experience of a lifetime,” says Teller,
who joined UTEP in 1997 and currently is principal investigator for
the University’s High Performance Systems Laboratory.
SC08 featured two “research thrusts” as the focus: bioinformatics
and energy.
The field of bioinformatics is using high-performance computing
to mine and share the vast amounts of data created by the mapping
of the human genetic code. Scientists are using the information to
develop better treatments for diseases.
Energy use and conservation are also a big focus of researchers,
who use supercomputers for the models and simulations needed to
design more efficient engines and electronic devices.
Faculty in Print
The Collections and Bibliographic Services
of the UTEP Library feature nutions:
Keys to Success in School and Ca-
Physical Therapy Professional Foundamerous
new titles by faculty, including: reer, by Kathleen A. Curtis, Ph.D., dean,
American Talmud: The Cultural Work College of Health Sciences
of Jewish American Fiction, by Ezra Cappell,
Ph.D, associate professor, English; di-
Creative Nonfiction: Work from 1970 to
Touchstone Anthology of Contemporary
rector, Inter-American Jewish Studies Prografessor,
creative writing
the Present, by Lex Williford, associate pro-
Basics of Engineering Economy, by Anthony
J. Tarquin, Ph.D., professor, civil entory
with Documents, by Ernesto Chavez,
The U.S. War with Mexico: A Brief Hisgineering
(with Leland Blank)
Ph.D., associate professor, history
Morality, Political Economy and American
Constitutionalism, by Timothy P. Gender, Fear, and Everyday Life in Ciu-
Violence and Activism at the Border:
Roth, Ph.D., professor and chair, economics
and finance
professor, political science; director, Center
dad Juárez, by Kathleen Staudt, Ph.D.,
Names on a Map: A Novel, by Benjamin for Civic Engagement
Alire Saenz, professor, creative writing For more titles and information, visit the University
Library at www.utep.edu/library
Networked Process: Dissolving Boundaries
of Process and Post-Process, by Helen
Foster, Ph.D., associate professor, rhetoric
and writing studies
14 winter 2008