Paul Fred Dubois

Professional Biography

Paul F. Dubois pioneered scientific computing techniques, including:

• Computational steering, the concept of an interpreted user-interface language driving compiled assets;
• The Basis System, the first widely successful computational steering development system;
• Numerical Python, as an important member of the design team and then its steward for five years;
• The use of object technology for scientific programming.

Paul graduated from the University of California at Berkeley and obtained the Ph. D. in mathematics from the University of California at Davis in 1970. After a postdoc at the University of Alberta and three years teaching at New Mexico Highlands University, Paul joined the Numerical Mathematics Group at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, working for seven years improving the speed, accuracy, and capabilities of the Laboratory's largest simulations, and contributing to a treaty verification project, Ionosonde.

This experience working with many large codes, each with its own development system, led Paul to develop, in 1983-4, the first reusable computational steering development system, Basis, as part of the first comprehensive Magnetic Fusion Mirror Machine simulation, MERTH. Basis was eventually used in more than 200 scientific simulations.

The success of Basis led Paul to manage the computer science team for the chief modeling program in Laser Fusion, Lasnex, from 1987-1998. Lasnex was translated to run on standard workstations and enabled novel use of Lasnex via the Basis interface. This made enough computational ability available to enable accurate simulations and the signing of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, and a proof of principle computation of radiation depositions for cancer treatment. He received a Distinguished Physics Achievement Award in 1991.

During that decade Paul was the foremost advocate of object-oriented scientific computing, which led to his design contributions and stewardship of the first numerical extension for the Python language. Computational steering using Python is now a leading technique in scientific programming.

Subsequently:

• In 1999 he joined the Program for Climate Model Diagnosis and Intercomparison, developing software for analysis of the output of climate models.
• In 2002 he became software architect for a three-dimensional Python-steered C++ project, Kull.
• Paul retired as a member of the Center For Applied Scientific Computing in June, 2005, and worked part-time in retirement on his massively parallel testing system.

Note: Paul is unrelated to Paul DuBois who wrote the books on MySql and other topics in computer science.

Bridge and Other Interests

Paul is a Ruby Life Master in the American Contract Bridge League, Unit 539 (San Diego).

His interests include Victorian Literature, writing, baking, and being a grandfather.

Speaking of baking: Paul's Blog About Baking

Computing in Science and Engineering

Paul wrote and edited a column on Scientific Computing for Computers in Physics and its successor IEEE Computing in Science and Engineering for 13 years beginning in 1993.

Each issue had a main article by Paul or by a guest author, with a sidebar by Paul called "Cafe Dubois". The cartoon was meant to invite the reader to pull up a chair, have some coffee, and discuss computer science.