orcid.org/0000-0002-0452-5571About
Bio-sketch
Hi! I’m George K. Thiruvathukal. I’m professor of computer science at Loyola University Chicago and visiting faculty at Argonne National Laboratory.
I earned the PhD and MS degrees in computer science from Illinois Institute of Technology in 1995 and 1990, respectively, and BA in computer science and physics (double major) with a mathematics minor from Lewis University in 1988. As a computer science major, I was named the top graduating student in computer science in 1998 and was inducted into the Sigma Pi Sigma Physics national honor society.
My primary research training is in the areas of high-performance computing, distributed systems, and software engineering with an emphasis on techniques to support parallel and distributed programming using modern software engineering practices, languages, and paradigms (e.g. object-oriented design and functional programming).
My doctoral research focused on object-oriented approaches to parallel programming and the development of object models, languages, libraries, middleware, and tools for parallel programming, which incorporated elements of dataflow computing, actors, and computational agents, resulting in several research prototypes written in the C and C++ languages on Unix platforms. After completing and defending my disseration, I re-implemented many of the ideas from my dissertation in the Java programming language, which resulted in a book, High-Performance Java Platform Computing, Prentice Hall and Sun Microsystems Press in the Java Series, which was cited in the Java Specification Request, JSR-166 (Concurrency Utilities) as a related/existing work. Our book, while no longer in print, is available freely and openly at works.bepress.com/gkthiruvathukal/26/.
Beyond my PhD training, I have wide-ranging interests in and beyond computer science, including cyber-physical systems, history of computing, computational and data science (applied to science and humanities problems), computing education, broadening participation, and social/societal issues in computing. In recent years, I have been following the path of many computer scientists by adding machine learning and artificial intelligence to the mix.
During my copious free time, I study jazz improvision and solo/ensemble performance at Old Town School of Folk Music with Jack Cassidy. I also enjoy cooking and baking with my family, which is truly a common bond for all of us!
My research is and has been funded by grants from the National Science Foundation, DARPA, and the National Endowment for the Humanities. I have also received corporate support from Hostway Corporation in Chicago, Microsoft Corporation, Hewlett-Packard, Typesafe, and Google Research (awarded to me and Yung-Hsiang Lu at Purdue in the area of machine perception).
Research
Current Research and Collaborations
I derive significant energy from research collaborations, both within and outside of my discipline, including both the humanities, sciences, and engineering. These form the basis for many of my current research projects and scholarly pursuits:
Disciplinary Interactions
Yung-Hsiang Lu (Purdue University) and I collaborate on systems software to support computer vision at scale. I am involved as co-PI and lead of software engineering in the Purdue HELPS research group with specific focus on the CAM2 Project.
Venkat Vishwanath, Silvio Rizzi and Xiaoyong Jin (Argone National Laboratory), François Tessier (ETH Zurich/CSCS), Cameron Christensen (SCI at University of Utah) and I collaborate on emerging runtimes for data science and engineering, focused on bringing cloud computing frameworks to supercomputers. Silvio Rizzi, Dario Dematties (PhD Student, University of Buenos Aires), and I are collaborating on biologically-inspired models of machine learning and artificial intelligence.
Jeffrey C. Carver (University of Alabama), Nasir O. Eisty (PhD Student at University of Alabama) and I collaborate on empirical software engineering, specifically to understand and encourage best practices in scientific and research sofware development, including the SE4Science initiative. Our focus is on the use of software metrics in research software development.
Konstantin Läufer, Nick Hayward, and I (all at Loyola University Chicago) collaborate on tools for software engineering and mining software repositories using an emerging Metrics Dashboard.
Ronald I. Greenberg and I collaborate in computing education research, focused on robotics at middle and high school levels.
Interdisciplinary Interactions
In 2012, Steve E. Jones and I wrote a book about the Nintendo Wii in the MIT Press.
David B. Dennis (cultural historian at Loyola University Chicago as well) and I are working on a new cutural history of computing textbook for Taylor and Francis/CRC Press and scholarly notetaking tools via the ZettelGeist project.
Gregory J. Matthews, Juliet K. Brophy , and Ofer Harel and I are collaborating the use of statistical methods, machine learning, and crowdsourcing for shape analysis, with a specific application to understanding the fossil record.
David B. Wetzel, Griffin Moe, and I are collaborating on electronic and digital music software for accessible ensemble performance, which we use to run the Loyola University Technology Ensemble. Come and join us sometime!
publications
Publications
Virtually all of my publications can be found in my university’s Digital Commons site at works.bepress.com/gkthiruvathukal.
CV
Here is a link to my CV, if you require something more formal.
Books
Thomas W. Christopher and George K. Thiruvathukal, High-Performance Java Platform Computing, http://ecommons.luc.edu/cs_facpubs/3
Andrew N. Harrington and George K. Thiruvathukal, Introduction to Computer Science in C#, http://ecommons.luc.edu/cs_facpubs/74
George K. Thiruvathukal, A Mini-History of Computing, http://ecommons.luc.edu/cs_facpubs/103
Conference Papers
Michael J. Lewis, George K. Thiruvathukal, Venkatram Vishwanath, Michael J. Papka, and Andrew Johnson, A Distributed Graph Approach for Pre-processing Linked RDF Data Using Supercomputers, http://ecommons.luc.edu/cs_facpubs/139
Kent Gauen, Ryan Dailey, John Laiman, Yuxiang Zi, Nirmal Asokan, Yung-Hsiang Lu, George K. Thiruvathukal, Mei-Ling Shyu, and Shu-Ching Chen, Comparison of Visual Datasets for Machine Learning, http://ecommons.luc.edu/cs_facpubs/148
George K. Thiruvathukal, Steven E. Jones, and Peter Shillingsburg, E-Carrel: An Environment for Collaborative Textual Scholarship, http://ecommons.luc.edu/cs_facpubs/1
Tao Bai, Christopher K. Chung, Konstantin Läufer, Daisy Rockwell, and George K. Thiruvathukal, A Multi-Platform Application Suite for Enhancing South Asian Language Pedagogy, http://ecommons.luc.edu/cs_facpubs/2
Benjamin Gonzalez and George K. Thiruvathukal, The Hydra Filesystem: A Distrbuted Storage Famework, http://ecommons.luc.edu/cs_facpubs/7
Wei-keng Liao, Alok Choudhary, Kenin Coloma, George K. Thiruvathukal, Lee Ward, Eric Russell, and Neil Pundit, Scalable Implementations of MPI Atomicity for Concurrent Overlapping I/O, http://ecommons.luc.edu/cs_facpubs/12
George K. Thiruvathukal, Lovely S. Thomas, and Andy T. Korczynski, Reflective Remote Method Invocation, http://ecommons.luc.edu/cs_facpubs/11
Joseph P. Kaylor, Konstantin Läufer, and George K. Thiruvathukal, RestFS: Resources and Services are Filesystems, Too, http://ecommons.luc.edu/cs_facpubs/15
Peter Aarestad, George K. Thiruvathukal, Avery Ching, and Alok Choudhary, Scalable Approaches for Supporting MPI-IO Atomicity, http://ecommons.luc.edu/cs_facpubs/21
Steven E. Jones and George K. Thiruvathukal, The Object of Platform Studies: Relational Materialities and the Social Platform (the case of the Nintendo Wii), http://ecommons.luc.edu/cs_facpubs/28
Joseph P. Kaylor, Konstantin Läufer, and George K. Thiruvathukal, REST on Routers? Preliminary Lessons for Language Designers, Framework Architects, and App Developers, http://ecommons.luc.edu/cs_facpubs/35
David Dennis, George K. Thiruvathukal, and Konstantin Läufer, Initial Experience in Moving Key Academic Department Functions to Social Networking Sites, http://ecommons.luc.edu/cs_facpubs/36
Sebastian Herr, John Shafaee, Konstantin Läufer, George K. Thiruvathukal, and Guido Wirtz, Combining SOA and BPM Technologies for Cross-System Process Automation, http://ecommons.luc.edu/cs_facpubs/37
Matt Bone, Peter Nabicht, Konstantin Läufer, and George K. Thiruvathukal, Taming XML: Objects first, then markup, http://ecommons.luc.edu/cs_facpubs/39
Joseph P. Kaylor, Konstantin Läufer, and George K. Thiruvathukal, Online Layered File System (OLFS): A Layered and Versioned Filesystem and Performance Analysis, http://ecommons.luc.edu/cs_facpubs/40
William T. O’Connell, George K. Thiruvathukal, and Thomas W. Christopher, Distributed-Memo: Heterogeneously Concurrent Programming with a Shared Directory of Unordered Queues, http://ecommons.luc.edu/cs_facpubs/42
William T. O’Connell, George K. Thiruvathukal, and Thomas W. Christopher, A Generic Software Modeling Framework for Building Heterogeneous Distributed and Parallel Software Systems, http://ecommons.luc.edu/cs_facpubs/43
William T. O’Connell, George K. Thiruvathukal, and Thomas W. Christopher, Distributed Memo: A Heterogeneously Distributed and Parallel Software Development Environment, http://ecommons.luc.edu/cs_facpubs/44
Alok Choudhary, Mahmut Kandemir, Wei-Keng Liao, G Memik, S More, X Shen, A Singh, and George K. Thiruvathukal, A Novel Application Development Environment for Large-Scale Scientific Computations, http://ecommons.luc.edu/cs_facpubs/48
X Shen, George K. Thiruvathukal, Wei-keng Liao, Alok Choudhary, and A Singh, A Java Graphical User Interface for Large-Scale Scientific Computations in Distributed Systems, http://ecommons.luc.edu/cs_facpubs/49
George K. Thiruvathukal and Thomas W. Christopher, A Simulation of Demand-Driven Dataflow: Translation from Lucid into MDC Language, http://ecommons.luc.edu/cs_facpubs/51
Yogesh Kanitkar, Konstantin Läufer, Neeraj Mehta, and George K. Thiruvathukal, A Model-Driven Approach to Job/Task Composition in Cluster Computing, http://ecommons.luc.edu/cs_facpubs/52
Konstantin Läufer, Chandra N. Sekharan, and George K. Thiruvathukal, PDC Modules for Every Level: A Comprehensive Model for Incorporating PDC Topics into the Existing Undergraduate Curriculum, http://ecommons.luc.edu/cs_facpubs/53
Jeffrey C. Carver and George K. Thiruvathukal, Software Engineering Need Not Be Difficult, http://ecommons.luc.edu/cs_facpubs/75
General Articles
George Thiruvathukal, Konstantin Läufer, and David Dennis, Moving Academic Department Functions to Social Networks and Clouds: Initial Experiences, http://ecommons.luc.edu/cs_facpubs/144
Gregory J. Matthews, George K. Thiruvathukal, Maxwell P. Luetkemeier, and Juliet K. Brophy, Examining the Use of Amazon’s Mechanical Turk for Edge Extraction of the Occlusal Surface of Fossilized Bovid Teeth, http://ecommons.luc.edu/cs_facpubs/150
George K. Thiruvathukal, Gregory J. Matthews, Maxwell P. Luetkemeier, and Juliet K. Brophy, Examining the Use of Amazon’s Mechanical Turk for Edge Extraction of the Occlusal Surface of Fossilized Bovid Teeth, http://ecommons.luc.edu/cs_facpubs/186
George F. Hurlburt, Maria R. Lee, and George K. Thiruvathukal, The Graph Database: Jack of All Trades or Just Not SQL?, http://ecommons.luc.edu/cs_facpubs/187
Lorena A. Barba and George K. Thiruvathukal, Reproducible Research for Computing in Science & Engineering, http://ecommons.luc.edu/cs_facpubs/188
Ian Foster, George K. Thiruvathukal, and Steven Tuecke, Technologies for Ubiquitous Supercomputing: A Java Interface to the Nexus Communication system, http://ecommons.luc.edu/cs_facpubs/8
George K. Thiruvathukal, XML in Computational Science, http://ecommons.luc.edu/cs_facpubs/10
George K. Thiruvathukal and Konstantin Läufer, Natural XML for Data Binding, Processing, and Persistence, http://ecommons.luc.edu/cs_facpubs/9
Bill Feireisen and George K. Thiruvathukal, At Issue, http://ecommons.luc.edu/cs_facpubs/13
George K. Thiruvathukal, Project Hosting: Expanding the Scientific Programmer’s Toolbox, http://ecommons.luc.edu/cs_facpubs/34
George K. Thiruvathukal, Konstantin Läufer, and David Dennis, Moving Academic Department Functions to Social Networks and Clouds: Initial Experiences, http://ecommons.luc.edu/cs_facpubs/19
George K. Thiruvathukal, Beyond CiSE and Back to the Future, http://ecommons.luc.edu/cs_facpubs/18
George K. Thiruvathukal, Your Local Cloud-Enabled Library, http://ecommons.luc.edu/cs_facpubs/17
George K. Thiruvathukal, An Exceptionally Useful Exploration, http://ecommons.luc.edu/cs_facpubs/20
Konrad Hinsen, Konstantin Läufer, and George K. Thiruvathukal, Essential Tools: Version Control Systems, http://ecommons.luc.edu/cs_facpubs/27
George K. Thiruvathukal, Computational Thinking…and Doing, http://ecommons.luc.edu/cs_facpubs/26
George K. Thiruvathukal, Introducing Computing Now, http://ecommons.luc.edu/cs_facpubs/24
Konstantin Läufer, George K. Thiruvathukal, Ryohei Nishimura, and Carlos Ramirez Martinez-Eiroa, Putting a Slug to Work, http://ecommons.luc.edu/cs_facpubs/23
Joseph P. Kaylor and George K. Thiruvathukal, A Virtual Computing Laboratory, http://ecommons.luc.edu/cs_facpubs/22
George K. Thiruvathukal, Home Networking, http://ecommons.luc.edu/cs_facpubs/32
George K. Thiruvathukal, Gentoo Linux: The Next Generation of Linux, http://ecommons.luc.edu/cs_facpubs/31
George K. Thiruvathukal and Konstantin Läufer, Plone and Content Management, http://ecommons.luc.edu/cs_facpubs/30
Ian Foster, Jonathan Geisler, William Gropp, Nicholas Karonis, Ewing Lusk, George K. Thiruvathukal, and Steven Tuecke, Wide-Area Implementation of the Message Passing Interface, http://ecommons.luc.edu/cs_facpubs/38
Ian Foster, Gregor von Laszewski, Brian Toonen, and George K. Thiruvathukal, A Computational Framework for Telemedicine, http://ecommons.luc.edu/cs_facpubs/41
George K. Thiruvathukal, Java at Middle Age: Enabling Java for Computational Science, http://ecommons.luc.edu/cs_facpubs/46
George K. Thiruvathukal, Guest Editor’s Introduction: Cluster Computing, http://ecommons.luc.edu/cs_facpubs/47
Joseph P. Kaylor, Konstantin Läufer, and George K. Thiruvathukal, Simplifying Domain Modeling and Memory Management in User-Mode Filesystems with the NOFS Framework, http://ecommons.luc.edu/cs_facpubs/62
Dejan S. Milojicic, Martin Arlitt, Dorée Duncan Seligmann, George K. Thiruvathukal, and Christian Timmerer, Innovation Mashups: Academic Rigor Meets Social Networking Buzz, http://ecommons.luc.edu/cs_facpubs/72
Steven Reisman, Thomas Hatzopoulous, Konstantin Läufer, George K. Thiruvathukal, and Catherine Putonti, A Polyglot Approach to Bioinformatics Data Integration: A Phylogenetic Analysis of HIV-1, http://ecommons.luc.edu/cs_facpubs/127
Tiffany Barnes and George K. Thiruvathukal, The Need for Research in Broadening Participation, http://ecommons.luc.edu/cs_facpubs/129
Presentations
George K. Thiruvathukal and Allen J. Frantzen, Electronic Editing of Anglo-Saxon Texts, http://ecommons.luc.edu/cs_facpubs/56
Steven Reisman, Catherine Putonti, George K. Thiruvathukal, and Konstantin Läufer, A Polyglot Approach to Bioinformatics Data Integration: Phylogenetic Analysis of HIV-1, http://ecommons.luc.edu/cs_facpubs/68
Joseph P. Kaylor, Konstantin Läufer, Chandra N. Sekharan, and George K. Thiruvathukal, Spring11: PDC in CS1/2 and a mobile/cloud intermediate mobile/cloud intermediate software design course, http://ecommons.luc.edu/cs_facpubs/67
Thomas Delgado Dias, Xian Yan, Konstantin Läufer, and George K. Thiruvathukal, Building Capable, Energy-Efficient, Flexible Visualization and Sensing Clusters from Commodity Tablets, http://ecommons.luc.edu/cs_facpubs/66
Paul Stasiuk, Konstantin Läufer, and George K. Thiruvathukal, Network Technologies Used to Aggregate Environmental Data, http://ecommons.luc.edu/cs_facpubs/65
Mark Lewis, Konstantin Läufer, and George K. Thiruvathukal, Using Scala Strategically Across the Undergraduate Curriculum, http://ecommons.luc.edu/cs_facpubs/69
George K. Thiruvathukal and Jon Ross, Gendered Jobs and the New Gender Gap, http://ecommons.luc.edu/cs_facpubs/73
Shilpika Shilpika, George K. Thiruvathukal, Saulo Aguiar, Konstantin Läufer, and Nicholas J. Hayward, Software Metrics and Dashboard, http://ecommons.luc.edu/cs_facpubs/87
George K. Thiruvathukal, Shilpika Shilpika, Nicholas J. Hayward, Saulo Aguiar, and Konstantin Läufer, Towards Sustainable Digital Humanities Software, http://ecommons.luc.edu/cs_facpubs/126
Media
Media Appearances
Stop the Press!
I welcome media inquires. I enjoy speaking on technology in general, computer science research (including my own), and historical, social, ethical, and legal issues in computing.
Direct inquiries are welcome. Please contact Justin Goldstein and Adam Zeiff for inquiries in connection with my work at IEEE. You may also contact Loyola University Chicago Media Relations Group.
Television Interviews
WTTW Chicago, #DeleteFacebook: Is It Time to Say Farewell to Facebook?, 8 January 2019, https://news.wttw.com/2019/01/08/deletefacebook-it-time-say-farewell-facebook, 2019-01-08
WTTW Chicago, Reports: Facebook Users’ Personal Data Exploited to Help Trump’s Campaign, https://chicagotonight.wttw.com/2018/03/20/reports-facebook-users-personal-data-exploited-help-trump-s-campaign, 2018-03-20
ABC-7 Chicago, Robots Inspiring STEM Education in Schools, http://abc7chicago.com/education/robots-inspiring-stem-education-in-schools/1555046/, 2016-10-15
ABC-7 Chicago, Voting Technology Changing Elections, http://abc7chicago.com/technology/voting-technology-changing-elections/1428545/, 2016-07-16
Newspapers and Magazines
VentureBeat, How AI is Bringing Hollywood to Life, http://venturebeat.com/2016/12/09/how-ai-is-bringing-hollywood-to-life/, 2016-12-09
EdTech Digest, Beyond Pythagoras, https://edtechdigest.wordpress.com/2016/12/16/beyond-pythagoras/, 2016-12-16
Robotics Tomorrow, Robotics 101 at Loyola University Chicago, http://www.roboticstomorrow.com/article/2016/10/robotics-101-at-loyola-university/9027, 2016-11-03
SC Media, Vulnerabilities Exist but so do Safeguards, https://www.scmagazine.com/vulnerabilities-exist-but-so-do-safeguards/article/571902/, 2016-11-09
ZDNet, Can AI really be ethical and unbiased?, http://www.zdnet.com/article/can-ai-really-be-ethical-and-unbiased/, 2016-10-16
Philadelphia Inquirer, Penn physicists honored for work that could take heat out of computing, http://articles.philly.com/2015-04-24/news/61462592_1_insulators-transistors-computer, 2015-04-24
Fast Company Co.Create, The Social Living Room: How Nintendo’s Wii Revolutionized Gaming and What it Means for the Future of Consoles, http://goo.gl/1dIvDp, 2012-06-07
IT World, Meet the IT Dream Team, http://www.itworld.com/article/2902274/who-do-you-want-on-your-it-dream-team.html, 2015-03-26
Computer Weekly, If the Year of Code has got it wrong, how should we teach kids to code?, http://goo.gl/1idy5U, 2014-02-17
Dell TechPageOne, Internet of Things will require data centers of all sizes, http://goo.gl/336n7s, 2014-06-24
Forbes, Does the Internet of Things Need Its Own Network?, http://goo.gl/MuWGvY, 2014-07-03
The Telegraph UK, Google Glass the next big gaming platform?, http://goo.gl/SuYMpy, 2013-08-12
Times of London, Computers with a Sense of Humour, http://goo.gl/ToFpOC, 2013-09-04
ACM/IEEE Supercomputing 2012, IEEE News Release for Supercomputing 2012, http://goo.gl/309AQp, 2012-11-12
Community
Community Activities
Conferences
Program Committeee, ParCo 2019
Co-Chair, Special Technical Community in Broadening Participation
Co-Chair, RESPECT 2015 Conference
Co-Chair, RESPECT 2018 Conference
Magazines and Journals
Editorial Board, Journal of Open Source Software
Editorial Board, Computing in Science and Engineering
Co-Editor, Reproducible Research Department, Computing in Science and Engineering
Co-Editor, Data* Department, Computing in Science and Engineering
Past but Recent Roles
Editor in Chief Emeritus, Computing in Science and Engineering, 2013-2016
Magazine Operations Chair, IEEE Computer Society, 2017-2018
Member, Publications Board, IEEE Computer Society, 2017-2018
Boards
Board of Directors, Access Contemporary Music