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Developing Whole Leaders for the whole World

High-Performance Power: ORU Training Students In Supercomputing

stephen_wheatWhen car manufacturers want to determine whether a new vehicle will withstand impacts, they run a crash test. They used to build a real vehicle and crash it into a real wall, but now, thanks to a science known as high-performance computing (or "supercomputing"), they can run thousands of simulated crashes before they ever build a single vehicle.

And thanks to Professor Stephen Wheat and the forward-thinking College of Science and Engineering, ORU is now gearing up to train students in this applied science.

An ORU alum, Wheat is a highly experienced thinker who spent decades working in high-performance computing in just about every sphere imaginable, from industry to academia to government consultations in the Departments of Defense and Energy. He joined the ORU faculty in January of 2018.

"He's a find for us," says Dr. Kenneth Weed, Dean of the College of Science and Engineering. "He's a high-powered person participating in our faculty, who brings a lot to the program."

"Looking back on my career, it's clearly a God thing," says Wheat. "None of this was done by my design."

Wheat wanted to return to ORU for a variety of reasons, but ultimately his decision came down to the impact he could have on ORU students.

"It was about continuing the experience I had through students and their future careers, and give the opportunity to convey what their careers could look like," he says. "There's a whole side of computing where we can have a direct influence on the quality of life around the world. We can contribute to clean water, sustainability, clean energy, national security, and so on. The kinds of things through computational science we can do is huge, so I love having the opportunity to infuse that into future employees and researchers."

Wheat is hoping that his career can inspire and influence his students—and not just because of the varied work opportunities he had.

"Being at ORU allows me to speak to what it looks like to be a light in a dark place. To be missionaries to the work force. That's what I'd been doing for so long, in conversations with colleagues. Now I can help raise up the next generation of people like me."

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