Positions/Employment
Head, High-End Computing (HEC) Program Support Office
2005 -
Present
NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD
Mr. Fischer leads the effort to increase NASA’s use of automation as it allocates High-End Computing resources within all Mission Directorates, oversees the process of allocating HEC resources within SMD, serves as executive secretary for the HECC Board of Advisors, oversees production of integrated HEC monthly reports for Headquarters, and oversees operation and augmentation of the HEC Program website http://www.hec.nasa.gov/.
Project Manager, Computational Technologies (CT) Project
1992 -
2004
NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD
Served as Project Manager for the $220M Computational Technologies (CT) Project [titled Earth and Space Sciences (ESS) Project from 1992-2001], under the NASA High Performance Computing and Communications Program and in partnership with NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), aimed at accelerating development and application of high-end and scalable cost-effective computing environments to meet the Grand Challenge needs of the U.S. Earth and space science community.
Head, High-Performance Computing Branch
1992 -
1995
NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD
Head, Computer Systems Research Facility
1986 -
1992
NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD
Operated an image processing computer facility for Goddard scientists and flight projects. Created the Scientific Movie Making Facility in 1988 for Goddard scientists to make VHS videos from digital image data - this facility evolved into Goddard's Scientific Visualization Studio. Replaced the unique Massively Parallel Processor (MPP) with MasPar Computer Corporation's systems which were essentially commercializations of the MPP concepts but with much greater capacity. Oversaw development of the 128-processor 1-million transistor Blitzen chip at the Microelectronics Center of North Carolina and its demonstration in 1990.
Project Manager, MPP Applications Project
1983 -
1991
NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD
Served as Technical Officer on the Massively Parallel Processor (MPP) development contract with Goodyear Aerospace Corp. which delivered to Goddard in May 1983 the unique Goodyear MPP containing an unprecedented parallel computing architecture. Managed testing of the MPP by a diverse national community of scientific investigators and the convening of a series of national symposia on the Frontiers of Massively Parallel Computation. Facilitated commercialization of the MPP architecture and donation of the MPP to the Smithsonian where it is currently on public display at the Udvar-Hazy Center.Education
B.S. Electrical Engineering, North Carolina State University, 1974
Awards
Recipient of the first GSFC Excellence in Information Science and Technology award, 2001NASA Exceptional Service Medal, 1994
