Spring 2007

David Womble is no fortune teller, but he does spend much of his time looking to the future. Instead of a crystal ball, the 1982 mathematics/computer science graduate uses algorithms in computer software to peek ahead 15 to 20 years.

As senior manager for computer science and mathematics at Sandia National Laboratories, Womble and his group write software used to simulate systems and answer “what if” questions for a variety of governmental departments and private business and industry.

“My biggest challenge is strategic leadership,” Womble explained. “Our group must identify the challenges facing our country in the future and what we’re going to do about them. We help different organizations determine when and where to make investments of time, talent and knowledge to help shape our future.”

Included among the areas Womble’s group deals with are:

• Safety, security and reliability of the American nuclear deterrent;
• Homeland security;
• Energy and water infrastructure;
• Geophysics
• Information processing and data mining.

All of these areas can impact national security directly. Sandia is a U.S. Department of Energy lab run by Lockheed Martin in Albuquerque, N.M.

At first glance, one might think Womble’s work is of the “if I tell you I’ll have to kill you” nature, but much of his group’s work is unclassified research and deals with the fundamental capabilities necessary for modeling and simulation. In fact, Womble’s group annually publishes over 200 peer-reviewed papers in scientific and technical journals.

Many of the codes and libraries generated at Sandia are widely used by industry, academia and other laboratories. Some of the codes developed through Womble’s group that are available to the general public include DAKOTA (optimization and uncertainty quantification), Zoltan (load balancing), and Trilinos (linear and nonlinear solvers).

At the core of the work in Womble’s area are algorithms and computer codes used to solve real-world problems. “Delivery and impact are very high on our list of priorities,” Womble explained. “We do research on a wide range of problems, but we don’t stop there. We need to deliver on a project. We just don’t sit in our office and make problems. They are real-world situations that require real-world deliverables. Many of the problems are open-ended, and may take months or years to solve,” Womble said.

Providing those deliverables requires a combination of brainpower and one of the most powerful computers in the world, a Cray machine called Red Storm with over 26,000 processor cores.

Fifty-five Ph.D.-level researchers conduct the work in Womble’s group. “When we recruit, we make it absolutely clear Sandia has a national security mission and they need to understand and work on that mission,” Womble said. “Managing a group of researchers who have such initiative and the desire to do things right is a true pleasure.”

“In my position, I get to help determine the problems to be solved and then help determine the strategy to attack them,” Womble said. “Then I find people and resources to solve those problems.

“I expect everybody in my group to be a leader in something. Leadership includes doing world-class research as judged by your peers and delivering results with impact.”

The road to Sandia management started in 1982 when Womble graduated from Rose-Hulman. He then went to Georgia Tech where he earned a master’s in mathematics in 1984 and a Ph.D. in mathematics in 1986. He also obtained a master’s in electrical engineering from Georgia Tech in 1986.

After graduate school, Womble went to Sandia in January of 1987. “I originally intended to stay for five years, but soon realized that if I wanted to do research that was applied, this was the place for me. I liked the research environment and the fact that our research has a real impact that makes a difference in the world.”

In addition to helping solve various problems along the way, Womble founded the Computer Science Research Institute at Sandia. The CSRI brings together researchers from universities, industries and national laboratories to conduct leading-edge research in computer science, computational science and mathematics.

“One of the big aspects of our job is interacting and collaborating with external communities,” said Womble, who still serves as director of the CSRI.

Womble has received individual and group recognition for his work at Sandia. He was honored with two different R&D 100 Awards for separate software packages on parallel computing and seismic imaging for the oil and gas industry.

Being a mathematician, Womble naturally is in tune to the importance of balanced equations and strives for equilibrium between Sandia and his personal life. He has two children, 12 and 14, who keep him busy with their activities, which include soccer, running and the arts. Womble has become a soccer referee who oversees adult, youth and high school matches.

Whether it’s on the soccer field or in the Sandia National Laboratories, Womble strives to stay competitive with an eye to the future.