Rice University Center for Research in Parallel Computation (CRPC) records, Ken Kennedy, Scientific Director

The Center for Research in Parallel Computation was founded by a National Science Foundation grant in 1989 with the goal of making massively parallel computing systems as usable as conventional supercomputing systems. The CRPC is a consortium of seven cores sites around the nation - Rice University, Argonne National Laboratory, Los Alamos National Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, Syracuse University, University of Tennessee, and University of Texas - as well as nine affiliated sites: Boston University, Indiana University, the Institute for Computer Applications in Science and Engineering, University of Illinoiss, University of Maryland, University of Houston, University of California, University of South California, and Drexel Unversity. More than fifty Ph.D research scientists and eighty graduate and undergraduate students participate in research programs and projects.

The CRPC in the 1990s mainly focused on five projects, two in software and three in algorithms. These included the Fortran Parallel Programming System Project, led by Ken Kennedy, scientific director of the CRPC, the Compostional Programming System project, led by Mani Chandy, the Linear Algebra Project, led by Jack Dongarra, the Optimization Project, led by John Dennis, and the Differential Equations Project, led by Andy White and Herb Keller. The CRPC also provided funding for visiting academic scientists engaged in research in related fields, led topical workshops and educational seminars throughout the year, as well as sponsored programs aimed at recruiting young students, especially women and minorities, to the realm of computer science.