Presenter

Brian Van Essen is a computer scientist at the Center for Applied Scientific Computing at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL). He is pursuing research in large-scale deep learning for scientific domains using high-performance computing systems and dedicated AI accelerators. He is the project leader for the Livermore Big Artificial Neural Network open-source deep learning toolkit, and for the development of a foundation model for molecular discovery (FLASK SI). Furthermore, he leads the AI Center of Excellence within the LLNL AI Innovation Incubator (AI^3), exploring cognitive simulation workloads using AI accelerators such as the Cerebras CS-2 and SambaNova SN-30. Additionally, he co-leads an effort to map scientific compute kernels to these spatial data-flow architectures. Brian joined LLNL in 2010 after earning his PhD and MS in computer science and engineering at the University of Washington. He also has an MS and BS in electrical and computer engineering from Carnegie Mellon University.