Featured Speaker: Dr. Bronson Messer

Bronson Messer is a Distinguished Staff Scientist and Director of Science for the Oak Ridge Leadership Computing Facility (OLCF) at ORNL. He is also Joint Faculty Professor in the Department of Physics & Astronomy at the University of Tennessee. Before becoming a staff member at ORNL, he was a postdoctoral research associate in the Department of Astronomy & Astrophysics at the University of Chicago. His primary research interests are related to the explosion mechanisms and phenomenology of supernovae (both thermonuclear and core-collapse), especially neutrino transport and signatures, dense matter physics, and the details of turbulent nuclear combustion. In addition, he has worked on the application of machine learning algorithms to the analysis of galaxy merger simulations and on performance modeling and prediction for high-performance computing architectures. 

Dr. Messer is a Fellow of the American Physical Society, and he recently served on the APS Committee on Informing the Public (2018-2020). In 2020, he was awarded the Department of Energy Secretary’s Honor Award for his part in enabling the COVID-19 High Performance Computing Consortium. Dr. Messer holds undergraduate and graduate degrees from the University of Tennessee, earning his PhD in physics in 2000.