Katherine "Kaylea" Nelson

Current Position

2015-present
• Yale Center for Research Computing
  Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut
  Team Lead of Computational Research Support

Education

Ph.D. 2015

• Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut
  Advisor: Daisuke Nagai
  Thesis: "Effects of Mergers and Dynamical State on Galaxy Clusters in Cosmological Simulations"
M.Phil. 2012
• Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut
M.S. 2011
• Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut
B.A. 2009
• Colby College, Waterville, Maine
  Physics and Astronomy, Mathematical Sciences
  Summa Cum Laude, Phi Beta Kappa, S.S. & I.M.F Marsden Prize in Earth Sciences
Diploma 2004
Phillips Academy, Andover, Massachusetts

Professional Experience

• 2022 - present

  Team Lead of Computational Research Support, Yale Center for Research Computing, Yale University

  Lead a team of Research Computing Facilitators (Computation Research Support Analysts). Leads large projects to refresh and expand the high performance computing and storage resources of the YCRC.

• 2020 - present

  Program Manager, NSF CAREERS Cyberteam, Yale University

  Serve as a co-Program Manager for the CAREERS Cyberteam Program. The CAREERS Cyberteam Program is a 3-year initiative funded by the National Science Foundation to build a regional pool of Research Computing Facilitators to support researchers at small and mid-sized institutions in Connecticut, Rhode Island, Pennsylvania, Delaware, New York and New Jersey. Over three years, the program supports 42 compute-intensive projects with RCFs-in-training ("students"), each paired with a mentor, to facilitate research computing needs for a 3 month period.

• 2015 - 2022

  Senior Computational Research Support Analyst, Yale Center for Research Computing, Yale University

  Serve as a Research Computing Facilitator to help Yale researchers make use of local, regional, and national high performance computing resources when computing needs exceed the capacity of the researcher's desktop or laptop.

• 2009 - 2015

  Astrophysics Ph.D. Candidate, Department of Astronomy, Yale University

  Utilizing cosmological, hydrodynamic simulations to study the effects of dynamical state on galaxy cluster properties and our ability to accurately measure them. Research responsibilities include the design, execution and management of large-scale simulations on high performance computers at Yale (>10 million CPU hours, ~500TB data generated). Development of Python, SQLite and C data analysis pipelines used throughout extended research group. Extensive experience in written and oral communication through research publications, teaching, and conferences. Additional responsibilities include project development/management and mentoring of undergraduate and junior graduate students.

  Developer for and user of astrophysics software CART and yt.

• 2010 - 2013

  Co-Founder & Developer, Spruce Interactive (http://spruce.it)

  Web development in HTML5, CSS3 (+preprocessors), PHP and Wordpress, JavaScript/jQuery. Clients included individuals, small businesses, startups, e-commerce companies, and global corporations.

• 2007 - 2009

  Co-Founder & Developer, Leakybean Web Design

  Web development in HTML, CSS, JavaScript, PHP.

Programming Experience

• Languages
• Expert in Python (including pandas, numpy and scipy packages)
• Expert in C
• Experienced in SQL/SQLite
• Familiar with Perl, IDL, R, Java, Objective-C
• Skills
• Expert in high performance computing
• Expert in Linux command line, bash scripting
• Experienced in test driven developement (pytest)
• Familiar with machine learning techniques
• Familiar with Open MPI
• Familiar with MacOS development
• Web Development
• Experienced in HTML, CSS (+preprocessors), JavaScript, PHP

Professional Activities

• Program Manager of NSF CAREERS Cyberteam Program, 2020-present
• Co-Chair of Women in HPC: North East Chapter, 2022-present
• CCaRC Decadal Survey Interest Group, 2021-present
• Member of the Technical Program Committee for PEARC Conference, PEARC22, PEARC21, PEARC20
• Member of the Technical Program Committee for SuperComputing Conference, SC20
• Mentor to YCRC Summer Interns, Summer 2018, Summer 2019
• Yale Representative to the Campus Research Computing Consortium (CCaRC), 2017-present
• CCaRC People Network Committee, 2017-2018
• Yale Research Data Consultation Group, 2017-2019
• Campus Champion, 2015-present