Larry Smarr

Professor Larry Smarr
Larry Smarr viewing an ImmersaDesk
Born	Larry Lee Smarr
Institutions	Princeton University Yale University Harvard University University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign University of California, San Diego.
Alma mater	University of Missouri University of Texas at Austin
Thesis	The Structure of General Relativity with a Numerical Illustration: The Collision of Two Black Holes (1975)
Known for	Quantified Self Metacomputing
Notable awards	Member of the National Academy of Engineering Fellow of the American Physical Society Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences Delmer S. Fahrney Medal (1990) Golden Goose Award (2014)
Website lsmarr.calit2.net

Professor Larry Lee Smarr is a physicist and leader in scientific computing, supercomputer applications, and Internet infrastructure at the University of California, San Diego.

Smarr received his Bachelor of Arts and Master of Science degrees from the University of Missouri in Columbia, Missouri and received a Ph.D. in physics from the University of Texas at Austin in 1975.

After graduating, Smarr did research at Princeton, Yale, and Harvard, and then joined the faculty of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 1979. He is a Professor of Computer Science and Information Technologies at the University of California, San Diego.

While at Illinois Smarr wrote an ambitious proposal to address the future needs of scientific research. Seven other University of Illinois professors joined as co-Principal Investigators, and many others provided descriptions of what could be accomplished if the proposal were accepted. Formally titled A Center for Scientific and Engineering Supercomputing but known as the Black Proposal (after the color of its cover), it was submitted to the National Science Foundation in 1983. A scant 10 pages long, it was the first unsolicited proposal accepted and approved by the NSF, and resulted in the charter of four supercomputer centers (Cornell, Illinois, Princeton, and San Diego), with a fifth (Pittsburgh) added later. In 1985 Smarr became the first director of the Illinois center, the National Center for Supercomputing Applications.