Barcelona Supercomputing Center (BSC) has been closely involved in PRACE, the Partnership for Advanced Computing in Europe, since the project’s inception. As well as leading work packages in organizational aspects of the research infrastructure, BSC has participated actively in all other work packages and is also one of six PRACE Advanced Training Centres (PATC).

Last week BSC Operations Director Sergi Girona was elected vice-chair of the PRACE Council at the same time as Anwar Osseyran of SURF/SURFsara was elected chair of the PRACE Council. Dr Girona’s involvement in PRACE dates back to its beginnings. A member of the Board of Directors of PRACE AISBL from 2010, he chaired this board from 2010 until September 2015. In this new role as vice-chair of the PRACE Council, he will work closely with Anwar Osseyran and will complement the duties of the chair.

‘My aim as vice-chair is to continue positioning PRACE and its services in Europe in the global High Performance Computing (HPC) ecosystem, as well as be aligned with the priorities defined by the chair of the PRACE Council’, commented Dr Girona.

Short biography

Sergi Girona holds a PhD in Computer Science from the Universitat Politècnica de Cataluya – Barcelona Tech. Currently he is director of the Operations Department at Barcelona Supercomputing Center (BSC) and the manager of the Spanish Supercomputing Network (RES). Between 2013 and 2015, he was both chair of the Board of Directors of PRACE and its managing director. In October 2015, he was named project coordinator of the EXDCI project, the objective of which is to coordinate the development and implementation of a common strategy for the European HPC Ecosystem.

He joined BSC in 2004 for the installation of MareNostrum in Barcelona, which was at that time the largest supercomputer in Europe, a position that maintained for 3 years. Dr Girona was responsible for site preparation and coordination with IBM for the system installation. Today, his responsibilities include managing the operations group, which is responsible for providing user support and system administration of the various HPC systems at BSC. He is the Spanish delegate to the European e-Infrastructure Research Group (e-IRG), as well as being a member of the European Strategy Forum on Research Infrastructures (ESFRI) Health and Food Strategic Working Group. The list of projects he has participated includes: DEISA, PRACE, EUDAT, EESI, Human Brain Project, RDA, EXDCI, ELITRANS, RDA Europe, HPC Europa, Red de eCiencia, RES.

Before joining BSC, he was director of the Spanish branch of EASi Engineering, a position which he had held since the company’s creation, and its research and development director for the German headquarters.

Read PRACE press release here.