Alumni Career Paths

Her DOE CSGF experience has been vital for success in her post at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) in Boulder, Colo., Allison Baker says.

The summer program review meetings, Baker says, gave her a chance to mix with fellows and researchers who used computers in other fields. That “illuminated the necessity of being able to talk about the science that I do in a language accessible to computational scientists in other disciplines.”

Now, as a project scientist in the Applications, Scalability, and Performance Group, Baker works closely with climate specialists on high-performance computing and big data issues relating to climate-modeling codes. She uses that ability to converse and collaborate across disciplines every day.

Baker started her career with goals to research interesting problems at a national laboratory and work in high-performance computing and scientific software development. After graduation, she joined Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, first as a postdoctoral fellow and later in a staff position. She joined NCAR after eight years in Livermore.

Baker is satisfied that she’s met her objectives, thanks to the DOE CSGF. “The fellowship convinced me that I would be happy to work at a DOE lab,” she adds. “And I was.”