Bio
Laxman Nathawat is an Environmental Informatics Software Engineer for the NASA’s ORNL Distributed Active Archive Center (DAAC) and the Remote Sensing and Environmental Informatics (RSEI) group. As a software engineer, he seeks to:
- Build, enhance, and maintain both backend and frontend applications and tools for the NASA’s ORNL DAAC.
- Promote customer satisfaction by writing user-centric and standards-based software.
- Automate and improve data ingestion, curation, quality assurance, and documentation workflow.
- Apply machine learning and cloud computing tools to design scalable, reliable, and secure software solutions.
He started his computing career at the Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC). As a Member Technical Staff within the Business Development Group of the High Performance Computing and Communications (HPCC) division, he worked on turnkey projects involving PARAM series supercomputers, parallel applications, and high speed networks.
In 2002, he joined Pellissippi State Community College as an instructor of High Performance Computing (HPC). At Pellissippi State, he was instrumental in establishing High Performance Computing (HPC) Department and the development of cluster computing infrastructure for the NSF funded National Center of Excellence for High Performance Computing Technology. He helped with the efforts to develop national certification and common curriculum for HPC technology and served on the HPC program and curriculum development committees. He was awarded the Gene Joyce Visionary Award for making a positive difference in the community through leadership and HPC technology-oriented projects.
He is passionate about innovative software development techniques that translate to user-friendly applications. At Pellissippi State, he developed and taught introductory to advanced level programming courses, introduced integrated software development and testing tools, established server-side software development lab environment, and developed and taught a course on mobile application development.
He has served as a lead instructor for over two dozen courses spreading across programming, Linux operating system, cluster computing, and data communications and networking areas of the IT. He is a recipient of the Innovations Award and the Excellence in Teaching Award for developing original and creative instructional and learning software tools.
He likes to solve problems, enjoys team projects, and actively seeks collaborative work opportunities. His current research interests are in the areas of cyberinfrastructure security, machine learning, and cloud computing.
Awards
• John and Suanne Roueche Excellence Award, 2015
• Pellissippi State Innovations Award, 2014
• NISOD Teaching Excellence Award, 2011
• Pellissippi State Excellence in Teaching Award, 2010
• Pellissippi State Gene Joyce Visionary Award, 2004
• Certificate of Appreciation by the Naval Oceanographic Office, Stennis Space Center, MS
• Alumni Association Gold Medal, National Institute of Technology, Warangal
• College Merit Scholarship
• National Merit Scholarship