KNOXVILLE, TN, November 21, 2018 /24-7PressRelease/ -- Marquis Who's Who, the world's premier publisher of biographical profiles, is proud to present James Arthur Kohl, PhD, with the Albert Nelson Marquis Lifetime Achievement Award. An accomplished listee, Dr. Kohl celebrates many years' experience in his professional network, and has been noted for achievements, leadership qualities, and the credentials and successes he has accrued in his field. As in all Marquis Who's Who biographical volumes, individuals profiled are selected on the basis of current reference value. Factors such as position, noteworthy accomplishments, visibility, and prominence in a field are all taken into account during the selection process.
Hired in 1993, Oak Ridge National Laboratory is the largest U.S. Department of Energy science and energy laboratory, conducting basic and applied research to deliver transformative solutions to compelling problems in energy and security. Dr. Kohl performed high-performance computing research in the Computer Science and Mathematics Division until 2009, and then transferred to the Spallation Neutron Source, a one-of-a-kind research facility that provides the most intense pulsed neutron beams in the world for scientific research and industrial development. His previous experience includes interning at the IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Center in Hawthorne, New York in 1992 and working as a research assistant at the Argonne National Laboratory in Illinois between 1983 and 1991.
As an expert software and computer architect, Dr. Kohl's inspiration stems from his father who worked at Bell Telephone Laboratories for many years. When he was about eight years old, his father had brought home what was, at the time, a state-of-the-art computer terminal, and he would allow him to log in and explore how the system worked. Later taking computer programming courses in high school, Dr. Kohl learned how to write programs and understand basic computer languages. Once he became a senior, he earned the opportunity to spend half of his school day at the Argonne National Laboratory working alongside amazing scientists who ultimately guided his later decisions to earn degrees in both computer engineering and electrical engineering.
Making great strides in his field, Dr. Kohl has conducted research in the "Common Component Architecture" (CCA), "MxN" parallel data exchange and coupling with the CCA, the "CUMULVS" system for collaborative parallel data migration, visualization, computational steering and software fault tolerance, and scalable sparse matrix viewers. He was part of the original "Parallel Virtual Machine" (PVM) design team, created the "XPVM" program visualization system, and supported the "MPI" message-passing interface standard. Authoring numerous peer reviewed articles and contributing to various conferences during his tenure, Dr. Kohl was honored in 2005 with a Best Paper Award for one of his publications by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers. He also received a Division Director's Award through the Computer Science and Mathematics Division at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in 1996. Dr. Kohl has received four "Significant Event Awards" from Oak Ridge National Laboratory for various special projects.
For the Spallation Neutron Source (SNS), James applies his high-performance computing and fault-tolerant software design skills to the data acquisition systems for capturing and organizing neutron scattering experiment data. Often acting as a self-proclaimed "software mercenary," Dr. Kohl has hardened, extended and redesigned several challenging legacy and new software systems for the SNS, including the "HistoTools" and "DataFileApp" data processing systems, the "Live Data Processing" (LDP) streaming data capture system, and ultimately the "Accelerating Data Acquisition, Reduction, and Analysis" (ADARA) streaming data collection software suite. He also designed and developed a preliminary web portal for SNS data access, and a complex "Application Manager" software infrastructure for staging, executing and tracking computational data analysis jobs.
Dr. Kohl is a member of the Order of the Engineer, the Purdue Alumni Association, Mensa International, Tau Beta Pi and Eta Kappa Nu. Involved in his local community, he volunteers with Community Shares in Knoxville, Tennessee, and the Boy Scouts of America and is a member of Eckankar, an international spiritual organization. Dr. Kohl is an elder and former Clerk of Session of the West Emory Presbyterian Church in Knoxville.
Throughout his long technical career and education, Dr. Kohl has always had a deep passion for a variety of creative musical endeavors. He entered instrumental music in 1975 with a promising "Wind Bag" award for holding a single note on alto saxophone for thirty seconds (as a third-grader), and his musical adventures have steadily crescendoed ever since. James sang and directed a youth bell choir in church and thrived in the astounding music program growing up in Naperville, Illinois. In eighth grade he performed a saxophone solo for the Naperville Municipal Band before a crowd of three thousand people. Dr. Kohl has always risen to leadership in music, and has led saxophone sections from the start, including at Purdue University, in classical symphony bands, marching and pep bands, pit orchestras and jazz ensembles. James was chosen to be a "Drum Major" field commander in each of junior high, high school and at Purdue University. He was Chief of Staff for the Purdue Bands and a Colonel in the student officer corps, and President of the Band in high school and again recently in the Oak Ridge Community Band in Oak Ridge, Tennessee.
Dr. Kohl was classically trained on saxophone by many excellent teachers and has played under world class musical directors including William C. "Bill" Moffit and Dr. Harry Begian. He has performed for two U.S. Presidents, was a finalist in the McDonald's All-American Band and received the John Philip Sousa Award (1984). In recent years, James began playing bass guitar and upright bass under the master tutelage of Rusty Holloway and plays bass guitar regularly with a group of fellow scientists and engineers in the "Chestnut Ridge Ramblers" (formerly "Superstring Vibrations") at the SNS. He also plays lead alto saxophone with "The Ensemble Swingtime" big band jazz group in Knoxville, Tennessee.
For his contributions, Dr. Kohl has been included in the 63rd edition of Who's Who in America. He holds a Bachelor of Science in computer and electrical engineering and a Master of Science in electrical engineering from Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana, since 1988 and 1989, respectively. He also holds a Doctor of Philosophy in electrical and computer engineering from the University of Iowa in Iowa City since 1994. Dr. Kohl notably received a presidential graduate fellowship from Purdue University in 1989 and a graduate fellowship from the University of Iowa's department of electrical and computer engineering from 1990 to 1993.
In recognition of outstanding contributions to his profession and the Marquis Who's Who community, James Arthur Kohl, PhD, has been featured on the Albert Nelson Marquis Lifetime Achievement website. Please visit www.ltachievers.com for more information about this honor.
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