Mark Galassi

Mark Galassi
Born1965-01-08 (1965-01-08) (age 59)
Manhattan, New York
Alma materReed College
Stony Brook University
OccupationScientist
Known forGNU Scientific Library • Gamma-ray bursts • Institute for Computing in Research
AwardsLos Alamos medal for community relations (inaugural, 2021)
Ten Who Made a Difference in Santa Fe
Scientific career
FieldsAstrophysics, Computer Science
InstitutionsTektronix, Virtual Corporation, Los Alamos Laboratory
Thesis Lattice Geometrodynamics  (1992)
Doctoral advisorMartin Rocek
Websitewww.galassi.org/mark/

Mark Galassi is a physicist, computer scientist, and contributor to the free and open-source software movement. He was born in Manhattan, grew up in France and Italy, and lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

Education

Galassi studied at the Liceo Classico Giuseppe Parini, graduating in 1983.

He completed his BA in physics at Reed College in 1986.[1] He has credited various aspects of the college for launching his career, including learning to write software from fellow student Keith Packard and others who taught informal classes in the Reed College Paideia classes.[2]

He then completed his Ph.D. in physics in 1992 at the Institute for Theoretical Physics at Stony Brook[3] under Martin Roček.[4]

Work and research

Galassi works in the Space Science and Applications group at the Los Alamos National Laboratory as a research scientist.

In Los Alamos he has worked in:

In the 1980s he also worked for Tektronix on the 11000 series oscilloscope, Cygnus Solutions (now part of Red Hat) working on Guile and eCos.[11]

Free/open-source contributions

Galassi has been involved in the free and open-source software movement since 1984. He designed the GNU Scientific Library together with James Theiler.[12] He was also an early contributor to GNOME,[13] and designed and led development of the Dominion world simulation game.[14]

He has served on the board of directors of the Software Freedom Conservancy[15] from its inception until the present time. He also was chair of the board until 2022.[16]

Educational initiatives

Galassi has been training students since the 1980s,[17][18] teaching them in research methods, with emphasis on using only free/open-source software tools.

After decades of developing this pipeline, in 2019, he conceived of and co-founded the Institute for Computing in Research,[19] a non-profit which trains high school students to do research, deeply rooted in free/open-source software. The Institute, founded in Santa Fe, New Mexico in 2019, offers a research internship modeled after the Los Alamos internship program. It has since spread to Portland, Oregon in 2021[20] and to Austin, Texas in 2022.[21]

In 2021 Galassi was awarded the inaugural Los Alamos medal for community relations[22] and the Santa Fe New Mexican "Ten Who Made a Difference" award,[23] both for the creation of the student pipeline that culminates in the Institute for Computing in Research.

References

  1. ^ "Theses - Physics - Reed College". www.reed.edu. Retrieved 6 December 2022.
  2. ^ "How was your experience at Reed College? Did you like it or not so much? What sets Reed College apart from other colleges?".
  3. ^ "People at the C.N. Yang Institute for Theoretical Physics".
  4. ^ "Mathematics Genealogy Project - Martin Rocek".
  5. ^ Borozdin, Konstantin N.; Brumby, Steven P.; Galassi, Mark C.; McGowan, Katherine; Starr, Daniel; Vestrand, Thomas; White, Robert; Wozniak, Przemek; Wren, James A. (2002). "Real-Time Detection of Optical Transients with RAPTOR". Astronomical Data Analysis II. Vol. 4847. p. 344. arXiv:astro-ph/0210008. doi:10.1117/12.461102. S2CID 15597117.
  6. ^ Vestrand, W. T.; Wozniak, P. R.; Wren, J. A.; Fenimore, E. E.; Sakamoto, T.; White, R. R.; Casperson, D.; Davis, H.; Evans, S.; Galassi, M.; McGowan, K. E.; Schier, J. A.; Asa, J. W.; Barthelmy, S. D.; Cummings, J. R.; Gehrels, N.; Hullinger, D.; Krimm, H. A.; Markwardt, C. B.; McLean, K.; Palmer, D.; Parsons, A.; Tueller, J. (2005). "A link between prompt optical and prompt γ-ray emission in γ-ray bursts". Nature. 435 (7039): 178–180. arXiv:astro-ph/0503521. Bibcode:2005Natur.435..178V. doi:10.1038/nature03515. PMID 15889084. S2CID 4410853.
  7. ^ Researchgate
  8. ^ Borozdin, Konstantin N.; Hogan, Gary E.; Morris, Christopher; Priedhorsky, William C.; Saunders, Alexander; Schultz, Larry J.; Teasdale, Margaret E. (2003). "Radiographic imaging with cosmic-ray muons". Nature. 422 (6929): 277. doi:10.1038/422277a. PMID 12646911. S2CID 47248176.
  9. ^ Hynes, Michael V.; Toolin, Maurice; Harris, Bernard; McElroy, John; Wallace, Mark S.; Schultz, Larry J.; Galassi, Mark; Hoover, Andrew; Mocko, Michal; Palmer, David; Tornga, Shawn; Wakeford, Daniel; Andrews, H. R.; Clifford, E. T. H.; Li, Liqian; Bray, Nick; Locklin, Darren; Lanza, Richard; Horn, Berthold; Wehe, David (2009). "The Raytheon-SORDS trimodal imager". In Blackburn, Brandon W (ed.). Non-Intrusive Inspection Technologies II. Vol. 7310. p. 731003. doi:10.1117/12.818735.
  10. ^ "GENIE Home". Archived from the original on 2017-04-23. Retrieved 2017-10-25.
  11. ^ Introduction to GNOME
  12. ^ Galassi, Mark; Theiler, James; Gough, Brian (2005). "GNU Scientific Library - Design document". doi:10.5281/zenodo.3818202. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
  13. ^ "Gnome-list 1998-January Archive by Author".
  14. ^ "Dominion - Free Software Directory".
  15. ^ "Officers - Software Freedom Conservancy". Archived from the original on 2019-09-18. Retrieved 2022-08-13.
  16. ^ "Matcher Interview - Mark Galassi".
  17. ^ "Simply Statistics: Interview with C. Titus Brown - Computational biologist and open access champion".
  18. ^ "Lessons on doing science from my father, Gerry Brown".
  19. ^ "Institute for Computing in Research – exploring the use of advanced computing in research and scholarship". Retrieved 6 December 2022.
  20. ^ "The Institute for Computing in Research Announces Portland Cohort".
  21. ^ "The Institute for Computing in Research announces 6 students to inaugural Austin cohort".
  22. ^ "Inaugural Laboratory Community Relations Medal goes to dedicated education volunteers".
  23. ^ "Through chess-to-computing program, Mark Galassi helps Santa Fe youth with their next move".