Phil Andrews (NICS); a great man who will be missed by all

TeraGrid mourns the passing of our dear friend and colleague, Phil Andrews, project director of the National Institute of Computational Sciences (NICS). After serving more than 25 years in a variety of leadership roles at National Science Foundation-funded centers, Dr. Andrews died suddenly on Thursday, February 24, 2011 from an apparent heart attack.

A keystone of U.S. cyberinfrastructure, Andrews, a native of the United Kingdom, brought tremendous academic credentials to the challenges he encountered at the Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center, the San Diego Supercomputing Center (SDSC), and where he recently served as one of the TeraGrid Principal Investigators at NICS, home to TeraGrid’s largest supercomputer, Kraken. In addition to developing NICS’ environment where the largest computing simulations in the country could be achieved, Andrews was influential in bringing many more large-scale cyberinfrastructure initiatives to reality, most recently helping to develop the project that will supplant TeraGrid in the summer of 2011.

With degrees in physics, mathematics, and plasma physics from Cambridge, Purdue, and Princeton universities, he was experienced in artificial intelligence, 3-D software, visualization, archiving, digital libraries, and computational medicine. During his career, Andrews authored approximately 40 papers on grid and data-intensive computing, documentation and visualization techniques, theoretical plasma physics and nonlinear dynamics.

“Beyond the significant contributions Phil made to help shape our national program, we knew and loved him for his jovial nature and the unparalleled eloquence and passion with which he defended his ideas,” said TeraGrid Forum Chair John Towns (NCSA). “A pillar of our community whose empty shoes will never be filled—Phil’s passing will be mourned by the entire TeraGrid family,” he added.

A memorial is scheduled for March 3-4, 2011 in San Diego, California. For more information, please visit:

http://www.pacificbeachchapel.com/home/contact_us.html

Read more about Dr. Andrews’ contribution to our community:

http://www.utk.edu/tntoday/2011/02/24/mourning-passing-nics-director/

http://www.nics.tennessee.edu/we-mourn-loss-our-director-dear-friend-and-colleague-dr-phil-andrews

http://www.sdsc.edu/News%20Items/PR022511_pandrews.html