Katherine Yelick

International Computer Science Institute

Papers

Total Citations

H-Index

About

Katherine Yelick is a leading figure in high-performance computing (HPC), whose work has fundamentally shaped how parallel applications are designed and executed. Her research focuses on programming models, runtime systems, and languages for scalable computing, with a particular emphasis on making parallelism accessible and efficient. A cornerstone of her contributions is her pioneering work on irregular applications, such as her highly influential 1996 paper "Portable Parallel Irregular Applications," which laid the groundwork for handling dynamic, non-uniform data structures in parallel environments. This work, along with her leadership in developing the UPC (Unified Parallel C) language and the Titanium project, has enabled scientists to tackle complex problems in fields like cosmology and biology. Yelick’s impact is immense, with her research cited tens of thousands of times, reflecting its foundational role in modern HPC. She is also a prominent advocate for diversity in computing and has served as Associate Laboratory Director for Computing Sciences at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, where she drove breakthroughs in exascale computing. Her achievements include being a Fellow of the ACM and IEEE, and her work continues to inspire a new generation of computational scientists.