The Early Career Principal Investigator award provides $100,000 a year for three years and is to be used toward a research project. Cameron’s project aims to increase the efficiency of large-scale computer systems.

“We are fighting against complexity,” said Cameron, who joined the faculty in 2001. “There used to be one processor in a compute node, now there are four, and soon there will be eight. Large clusters of these computers are using legacy codes—25- to 30-year-old codes that were designed to run on 25- to 30-year-old computers. Cluster architectures are a moving target: they are constantly evolving quite drastically. We are trying to change the way the legacy codes work to keep up with technology.”

With the DOE funding, Cameron will build a server-based computer cluster prototype of DOE computers and will support two graduate students assisting him with the research.

In addition to the DOE award, Cameron received a 2004 National Science Foundation Career Award in 2004 and will receive a USC College of Engineering and Information Technology Young Investigator Research Award in April, 2005. His research interests include high-performance and grid computing, parallel and distributed systems, computer architecture, power-aware systems, and performance evaluation and prediction.

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