Richard Gerber

Biographical Sketch
Richard Gerber is a High Performance consultant in NERSC's User Services Group. In addition to helping scientists use NERSC's facilities, Richard is a primary contributor to the NERSC web site, coordinates NERSC's training efforts, has the lead role in managing NERSC's trouble ticket system, and designs and conducts NERSC's annual user survey. Richard designed and implemented databases and web interfaces to display system statuses and job information to NERSC' users. He also developed the LAMP (Linux/Apache/MySQL/PHP) web interface used by NERSC staff to manage trouble tickets.
Richard and Harvey Wasserman coordinate and facilitate the HPC Requirements Workshops run by NERSC, the DOE Office of Advanced Scientific Computing Research, and the DOE Office of Science program offices.
Richard has a Ph.D. in physics, specializing in computational astrophysics, from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and completed a postdoctoral fellowship at NASA Ames Research Center. His specialty is N-body and Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics of colliding galaxies, "ring" galaxies in particular. He also has an interest in N-body realizations of equilibrium galaxies.
Professional Activities
- Reviewer, Berkeley Lab Internships for Precollegiate Scholars program, 2011.
- National Science Foundation Merit Review Panel, 2011.
- Mentor, DOE Academies Creating Teacher Scientists program, Summer 2010.
- National Science Foundation Merit Review Panels, 2010, 2011, 2012.
- Mentor, Berkeley Lab Internships for Precollegiate Scholars program, 2009.
- President, IBM High Performance Scientific Computing User Group (ScicomP), 2007-2010.
Journal Articles
Richard A. Gerber, “Global Effects of Softening n-Body Galaxies”, Astrophysical Journal, August 1, 1996, 466:724-731,
- Download File: 1996ApJ...466..724G2.pdf (pdf: 1.3 MB)
Gerber, R.A. & Lamb, S.A., “A Stellar and Gas Dynamical Numerical Model of Ring Galaxies”, Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, January 8, 1996, 278:345,
- Download File: 1996MNRAS.278..345G2.pdf (pdf: 3 MB)
Richard A. Gerber and Susan A. Lamb, “A Model for Collisionally Induced Disturbed Structure in Disk Galaxies”, Astrophysical Journal, August 20, 1994, 431:604-616,
- Download File: 1994ApJ431604G.pdf (pdf: 793 KB)
Susan A. Lamb, NORDITA and Neils Bohr Institute; Richard A. Gerber University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign; and Dinshaw Balsara, Johns Hopkins University, “Galactic Scale Gas Flows in Colliding Galaxies: a-Dimensional, N-bodyjHydrodynamics Experiments”, Astrophysics and Space Science, May 1994, 216:337-346,
- Download File: lambgalactic-scale-gas-flows-in-colliding-galaxies.pdf (pdf: 629 KB)
Richard A. Gerber, Susan A. Lamb, and Dinshaw Balsara, “A Model of Ring Galaxies: Arp 147-Like Systems”, Astrophysical Journal, November 1, 1992, 399:L51-L54,
- Download File: 1992ApJ399L51G.pdf (pdf: 2.3 MB)
Conference Papers
Nathan C. Hearn, Susan A. Lamb, Robert A. Gruendl (Univ. of Ill.), Richard A. Gerber (NERSC/Berkeley Lab), “The Colliding Galaxy System Arp 119: Numerical Models and Infrared Observations”, Astronomical Society of the Pacific Conference Series, January 17, 2000, 215:46H,
Lamb, S. A.; Hearn, N. C.; Gerber, R. A., “Velocity Fields in Impacted Gaseous Galactic Discs: A Numerical Survey using N-body/SPH Simulations”, Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, May 17, 1999, 31:829,
Lamb, S. A.; Gerber, R. A.; Rudnick, G. H.; Dewing, M., “Starbursts in Collisionally Produced Ring Galaxies: Comparisons Between Numerical Models and Observed Systems”, Revista Mexicana de Astronomia y Astrofisica Serie de Conferencias, May 3, 1997, 6:151,
- Download File: 1997RMxAC6151L.pdf (pdf: 496 KB)
Smith, B.F.; Gerber, R.A.; Steiman-Cameron, T.Y.; Miller, R.H., “The Response of Disks to Oscillatory Modes in Galaxies”, Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, June 17, 1996, 28:1189,
Rudnick, G. H.; Lamb, S. A.; Gerber, R. A.; Dewing, M., “A Comparison between Numerical Models of Collisionally Produced Ring Galaxies and Observed Systems”, Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, May 13, 1996, 28:826,
Gerber, R. A.; Smith, B. F.; Steiman-Cameron, T. Y., “The Response of Disks to Oscillatory Modes in Galaxies”, Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, December 11, 1995, 27:1353,
Gerber, Richard A, “Some Consequences of Using Gravitational Softening to Model N-body Galaxies”, Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, June 12, 1995, 27:1201,
Lamb, S. A.; Gerber, R. A.; Balsara, D. S., “Off-Center Collisions Involving Rotating Disk Galaxies: 3-D Numerical Simulations”, Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, December 12, 1994, 26:1430,
Gerber, Richard A., “Some Consequences of Using Gravitational Softening to Model N-body Galaxies”, Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, March 1994, 27:885,
Susan A. Lamb, Richard A. Gerber, Dinshaw S. Balsara, “Galaxies in Collision: The Formation of Rings and Arcs”, Astron. Ges., Abstr. Ser, June 1, 1993, 8:56,
- Download File: 1993AGAb856L.pdf (pdf: 279 KB)
Gerber, R. A.; Lamb, S. A., “Models for Collisionally Induced Disturbed Structure in Disk Galaxies”, Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, May 18, 1992, 24:811,
Gerber, R. A.; Lamb, S. A.; Balsara, D. S., “A Model for Ring Galaxies: Arp 147-Like Systems”, Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, September 17, 1991, 23:1391G,
R.A. Gerber, S.A. Lamb (Univ. of Ill.), and D.S. Balsara (JHU), “Ring Formation in Off-Axis Collisions of Galaxies”, Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, March 11, 1991, BAAS 23:953G,
Gerber, Richard A.; Balsara, Dinshaw S.; Lamb, Susan A, “Dynamical experiments on models of colliding disk galaxies”, NASA, Marshall Space Flight Center, Paired and Interacting Galaxies: International Astronomical Union Colloquium, November 12, 1990, 124:737-742,
- Download File: 1990NASCP3098737G.pdf (pdf: 1.1 MB)
R.A. Gerber, S.A. Lamb (Univ. of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign), D.S. Balsara (Johns Hopkins Univ.), “Combined Hydrodynamical and N-Body Studies of Colliding Galaxies: The Formation of Ring Galaxies”, 177th Meeting of the American Astronomical Society, July 9, 1990, 22:1243G,
Gerber, R. A. and Lamb, S. A. and Miller, R. H., and Smith, B. F., “Models of colliding galaxies: kinetic energy and density enhancement”, Dynamics and Interactions of Galaxies, Proceedings, Springer, Berlin (Germany, F.R.), June 4, 1990, 223,
Gerber. R. A.; Lamb, S. A.; Miller, R. H.; Smith, B. F., “Potential Sites for Star Formation in Colliding Galaxies”, Astrophysics and Space Science Library, Workshop of the Advanced School of Astronomy, February 12, 1990, 160:366G,
Lamb, S. A.; Miller, R. H.; Gerber, R. A.; Smith, B. F., “Models of Colliding Galaxies: Kinetic Energy and Density Enhancements”, Astrophysics and Space Science Library, Kona Symposium of Millimetre and Submillimetre Astronomy, January 8, 1990, 158:235L,
R. A. Gerber, D. S. Balsara, and S. A. Lamb (Univ. of Ill.), “Potential Sites of Star Formation in Interacting Galaxies: Numerical Experiments”, Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, September 11, 1989, 21:1163G,
S.A Lamb, R.A. Gerber (U. Illinois), R.H. Miller (U. Chicago), B.F. Smith (NASA/Ames), “Models of Colliding Galaxies: Kinetic Energy and Density Enhancements”, 173rd Meeting of the American Astronomical Society, September 10, 1988,
Presentation/Talks
Using the DDT Debugger on NERSC's Hopper Cray XE6, Presented to UC Berkeley CS 267 Class, Applications of Parallel Computer, February 16, 2012,
- Download File: HPCTools-Gerber.pdf (pdf: 6.7 MB)
User Requirements Gathered for the NERSC7 Procurement, February 3, 2012,
- Download File: Gerber-User-Req.pdf (pdf: 6.7 MB)
HPC I/O in Scaling to Petascale and Beyond: Performance Analysis and Optimization of Applications, SC11, November 13, 2011,
- Download File: SC11-IO.pdf (pdf: 8.4 MB)
NERSC Overview for Environmental Energy Technologies, Berkeley Lab, Environmental Energy Technologies Division, Berkeley, CA, June 2011,
- Download File: eetd.pdf (pdf: 12 MB)
Getting Started at NERSC, NERSC Training Webinar Berkeley Lab OSF, Oakland, CA, June 7, 2011,
- Download File: NewUser-June-2011.pdf (pdf: 16 MB)
NERSC Overview for the Joint Genome Institute, DOE Joint Genome Institute, Walnut Creek, CA, May 2, 2011,
- Download File: Gerber-JGI.pdf (pdf: 12 MB)
Reports
Richard A. Gerber, Harvey J. Wasserman, “Large Scale Computing and Storage Requirements for Nuclear Physics”, Workshop, March 26, 2012, LBNL LBNL-5355E
Report of the user requirements workshop for lattice gauge theory and nuclear physics computation at NERSC that took place May 26, 2011
Richard A. Gerber, Harvey J. Wasserman, “Large Scale Computing and Storage Requirements for Advanced Computational Science Research”, Workshop, January 2012, LBNL LBNL-5249E
- Download File: NERSC-ASCR-WorkshopReport.pdf (pdf: 1.4 MB)
Richard A. Gerber, Harvey J. Wasserman, “Large Scale Computing and Storage Requirements for Fusion Energy Sciences”, Workshop, December 2011,
- Download File: NERSC-FES-WorkshopReport.pdf (pdf: 1.8 MB)
Richard A. Gerber, Harvey J. Wasserman, “Large Scale Computing and Storage Requirements for Basic Energy Sciences”, Workshop, June 10, 2011, LBNL LBNL-4809E
- Download File: NERSC-BES-WorkshopReport.pdf (pdf: 14 MB)
Richard A. Gerber, Harvey J. Wasserman, “Large Scale Computing and Storage Requirements for High Energy Physics”, Workshop, November 15, 2010,
- Download File: NERSC-HEP-WorkshopReport.pdf (pdf: 8.6 MB)
Richard A. Gerber, Harvey J. Wasserman, “Large Scale Computing and Storage Requirements for Biological and Environmental Research”, Workshop, October 19, 2009, LBNL LBNL-2710E
- Download File: NERSC-BER-WorkshopReport.pdf (pdf: 1.7 MB)
W. Allcock, R. Carlson, S. Cotter, E. Dart, V. Dattoria, B. Draney, R. Gerber, M. Helm, J. Hick, S. Hicks, S. Klasky, M. Livny, B. Maccabe, C. Morgan, S. Morss, L. Nowell, D. Petravick, J. Rogers, Y. Sekine, A. Sim, B. Tierney, S. Turnbull, D. Williams, L. Winkler, F. Wuerthwein, “ASCR Science Network Requirements”, Workshop, April 15, 2009,
- Download File: ASCR-Net-Req-Workshop-2009-Final-Report.pdf (pdf: 4.5 MB)
ESnet publishes reports from Network and Science Requirement Workshops on a regular basis. This report was the product of a two-day workshop in Washington DC that addresses science requirements impacting operations of networking for 2009.
Thesis/Dissertations
Stellar and gas dynamics of interacting ring galaxies, Richard A. Gerber, Ph.D., October 1, 1993,
Stellar and Gas Dynamics of Interacting Ring Galaxies: Front Material, Richard A. Gerber, May 1993,
- Download File: ThesisPreamble.pdf (pdf: 1013 KB)
Stellar and Gas Dynamics of Interacting Ring Galaxies: Chapter 1 - Introduction, Richard A. Gerber, May 1993,
- Download File: Thesis-Chapter1.pdf (pdf: 3.1 MB)


