Dr. Michael O. Atambo
High Performance Computing | Materials Science | DevOps Excellence
"Scientia et technē"
Areas of Expertise
High Performance Computing
Over 10 years of experience in HPC cluster design, setup, and management. Expert in GPU computing solutions, workload management with Slurm, and performance optimization.
- HPC Infrastructure Design
- GPU Computing Solutions
- Cluster Administration (Rocky Linux, OpenHPC)
- Performance Monitoring & Optimization
Computational Materials Science
PhD in electronic and optical properties of materials using Many-Body Perturbation Theory. Specialized in DFT, QMC, and MBPT techniques for materials discovery and characterization.
- Density Functional Theory (DFT)
- Quantum Monte Carlo (QMC)
- Many-Body Perturbation Theory
- Materials Discovery & Design
High Throughput Computing
Developer of AiiDA-YAMBO plugin for automated materials characterization. Expert in workflow automation and high-throughput computational frameworks.
- AiiDA Framework Development
- Automated Workflows
- Quantum ESPRESSO & YAMBO
- Large-Scale Computations
DevOps & Cloud Computing
Advanced skills in containerization, orchestration, and cloud infrastructure. Proficient in Kubernetes, modern web frameworks, and distributed systems.
- Kubernetes Orchestration
- Container Technologies
- CI/CD Pipelines
- Python, JavaScript, C++, Go
Expertise And Services
Offering specialized expertise in high performance computing, research computing infrastructure, and computational science solutions for academic institutions, research centers, and industry.
HPC Cluster Design & Setup
Complete turnkey solutions for HPC infrastructure, from hardware specification to software configuration and user training.
Research Computing Strategy
Strategic planning for institutional research computing capabilities, capacity building, and resource optimization.
GPU Computing Solutions
Implementation of GPU-accelerated computing for AI, machine learning, and scientific computing applications.
Computational Workflows
Development of automated computational workflows using AiiDA and other high-throughput computing frameworks.
Training & Capacity Building
Workshops and training programs in HPC usage, parallel programming, and computational materials science.
Cloud & DevOps for Science
Implementation of cloud infrastructure and DevOps practices for research computing environments.
HPC Systems & Documentation
Systems I've designed, deployed, and maintained for research computing in Kenya.
STAMPEDE HPC Cluster @ NACOSTI
Designed and deployed a complete HPC cluster featuring:
- 4 compute nodes (48 cores total)
- 38 TB centralized storage
- Slurm workload manager with accounting
- Real-time monitoring with Netdata and XDMoD
- Rocky Linux 8.x with OpenHPC
- Infiniband networking
KENET GPU Cluster
Research computing infrastructure enabling GPU-accelerated research across multiple disciplines:
- Materials discovery and simulation
- Machine learning applications in textiles
- Computational linguistics for heritage preservation
- Health equity initiatives using AI
Curriculum Vitae
Current Positions
Research Computing Associate - Kenya Education Network Trust (2023 - Present)
Leading research computing initiatives, GPU computing enablement, and building computational capacity across Kenyan institutions.
Lecturer - Technical University of Kenya (2019 - Present)
Department of Technical and Applied Physics, teaching computational physics and materials science.
Education
PhD - University of Modena and Reggio Emilia, Italy (2015-2018)
Electronic and Optical Properties of Doped TiO₂ by Many Body Perturbation Theory
MSc - University of Eldoret, Kenya (2011-2013)
Computational Material Science
BSc Physics - Moi University, Kenya (2007-2011)
Key Experience Highlights
T.R.I.L Fellow - ICTP, Trieste, Italy (2014-2015)
Advanced training in HPC techniques, parallel programming, and scientific computing. Gained expertise with TRILIOS, PLASMA libraries, and QE-GPU.
Research Student/HPC Facilitator - University of Eldoret (2011-2014)
Maintained computing cluster for CMSG research group, trained researchers on HPC usage, and developed materials science research.
Technical Skills
- Programming: Python (expert), JavaScript (very proficient), C/C++ (proficient), Fortran, Go
- HPC: Slurm, OpenHPC, Rocky Linux, cluster management, GPU computing
- DevOps: Kubernetes, Docker, Tornado web framework, MongoDB, ArangoDB
- Scientific Computing: Quantum ESPRESSO, YAMBO, CASINO, AiiDA framework
Initiatives
APhRICA Network (2024-Present)
Advanced Physics tRaIning and Collaboration with Africa - An international initiative training young African scientists to contribute to continental development through advanced physics research.
Selected Publications
- Michael Atambo, Daniele Varsano, Andrea Ferretti, et al. (2019). "Electronic and Optical properties of doped TiO₂ by many-body perturbation theory." Physical Review Materials 3, 045401. arXiv:1811.04280
- D. Sangalli, A. Ferretti, H. Miranda, et al. including M.O. Atambo (2019). "Many-body perturbation theory calculations using the yambo code." Journal of Physics: Condensed Matter. arXiv:1902.03837
- Davide Campi et al. including M.O. Atambo (2016). "Development of the AiiDA plugins for the flagship codes." Deliverable D3.2 of the H2020 project MaX, EC grant agreement no: 676598, EPFL, Lausanne, Switzerland.
- Michael O Atambo, N W Makau, G O Amolo, and Ryo Maezono (2015). "QMC and phonon study of super-hard cubic boron carbon nitride." Materials Research Express, 2(10), 105902.
EU & International Collaboration
I am available as an expert partner for EU-funded projects in high performance computing, computational science, and research infrastructure development and condensed matter physics
Expertise Areas for EU Projects:
- HPC Infrastructure Design & Implementation
- Research Computing Strategy & Capacity Building
- High-Throughput Computational Workflows
- Materials Science & Computational Physics
- GPU Computing & AI Infrastructure
- DevOps for Scientific Computing
- Training & Education in Computational Sciences
Interested in collaboration? Get in touch
Get In Touch
I'm available for consulting, collaboration, and speaking engagements.
Location: Nairobi, Kenya