At Control Data Brazil As a manager At University of North Dakota At University of Notre Dame At Midwestern State University
Dr. Nelson L. PASSOS is a Brazilian national and received a BS Degree in Electrical Engineering from the Escola Politecnica da Universidade de Sao Paulo (Polytechnic School of University of Sao Paulo), Brazil. Dr. PASSOS graduated in 1974 in Electrical Engineering with an emphasis in Telecommunications. During his junior year, Dr. PASSOS worked in an internship with Control Data Brazil, a subsidiary of Control Data Corporation (CDC) with headquarters in Minneapolis, MN. In his senior year at the school, Dr. PASSOS was hired as a Computer System Analyst in the Department of System Analysis and Programming. His initial duties included planning and design of commercial software systems. That same year, Dr. PASSOS was invited to work in a Control Data Division that was just beginning to do business in Brazil, the Cybernet Services Division. In this new area, Dr. PASSOS was assigned to work with scientific computing, one of the focal business of CDC.
Following his degree, Dr. PASSOS received a salary raise of more than 400% (1,350 cruzeiros to 6,000 cruzeiros) as a reward for his dedication and professionalism. During the period between 1974 and 1978, the Brazilian branch of the Cybernet Services Division grew from one customer using a computer terminal to access powerful processors in Rockyville, MD, to hundreds of users using the first scientific supercomputer (at the time) to be installed in Brazil. It was Dr. PASSOS responsibility to teach this group of users the basics of the new computer architecture and the usage of scientific programming languages. Dr. PASSOS developed several seminars and short courses in scientific processing. With his experience in teaching, Dr. PASSOS was offered a position as an assistant professor at University of Mogi das Cruzes (UMC) during 1977 and 1978, concurrently with his job at CDC.
Among the CDC users that benefited from Dr. PASSOS' work, were important research institutions such as Nuclebras, the Brazilian nuclear regulatory agency, several universities including the University of Sao Paulo, and some of the largest engineering companies in the world, such as Themag and Promon, which were responsible for design and construction of hydroelectric power plants, roads, bridges and other construction projects around the world. During this time, Dr. PASSOS also provided consulting services to these companies. Dr. PASSOS' areas of expertise included project management, power systems design and the development and implementation of FORTRAN programs and data base systems. In 1978, Dr. PASSOS received the award of "Best System Analyst" in the Control Data Corporation - Panam Pacific region. At the end of 1978, Dr. PASSOS left the teaching position at UMC due to the frequent trips required by CDC.
In 1979, Dr. PASSOS was promoted to the position of Services Support Manager for the South region of Brazil. Dr. PASSOS assumed the responsibility for a number of people including two Ph.D.'s, 5 engineers, two secretaries and three computer operators. In the same year, Control Data had an opportunity to sell a supercomputer in South America. The prospective client was the Center for Aerospace Technology (CTA) which required as part of their bid a very strong technical proposal with a competitive benchmark. Dr. PASSOS was the most experienced and knowledgeable Systems Analyst at Control Data and was offered a new position as Technical Consultant. Dr. PASSOS was promoted in order to work on the technical sale process. Dr. PASSOS traveled to Minneapolis and worked alone using the benchmark lab of Control Data Corporation in an effort to produce the best benchmark results of the bid in the shortest time. The total revenue generated by that sale was in the order of millions of dollars.
In 1980, Dr. PASSOS received the most prestigious company award, he was inducted as a member of the Bill Norris Shark Club, from the hands of William Norris, President and Co-founder of Control Data Corporation. This award was reserved for a select group of 50 among the 60 thousands employees working for the company at that time. Dr. Passos also received the CDC Professional Excellence Award and the Outstanding System Analyst for the Panam/Pacific regions
After the first system sale, Control Data Brazil started diversifying its business creating 3 divisions: Cybernet Services (remote access to scientific computers), EDP Systems (super computer sales and support), and Application and Products Services (Consulting Services). The synergism required in order to have those 3 lines of business working together was considered the most important goal in the company's management decisions. In 1982, Dr. PASSOS was promoted to the position of Manager of Products and Services, with responsibility over the technical staff assigned to those 3 product lines, including several engineers, a librarian, secretaries and computer operators. Dr. PASSOS' new position involved responsibility for significant technical work, including the design and management of the installation of computer systems at Petrobras (the Brazilian Petroleum Company), Nuclebras, Natron (an engineering company), IPT (Institute of Technology Research), and other organizations. While at CDC, Dr. PASSOS was offered a part time professorship at PUC (Pontifical Catholic University) which he managed to work on for one year. Dr. PASSOS published two papers related to Data Analysis and Data Base Design.
In 1984, Control Data decided to bring a new line of services to Brazil: Meteorological Systems. This field required someone with technical expertise in the scientific computing area, as well as knowledge on satellite images and data communications. Dr. PASSOS was again called to take over the technical aspects of the new services in the position of Systems Consultant. In his new area, Dr. PASSOS worked in the design and implementation of several meteorological systems installed in important government agencies such as the Instituto de Pesquisas Espaciais - INPE (Institute for Space Research). At INPE, Dr. PASSOS designed the interface of the meteorological system with the satellite METEOSAT. This involvement with the meteorology community was the source for two other publications. Dr. PASSOS then went on to design and implement a meteorology system installed in the University of Pelotas, in the South of Brazil, where he was also responsible for the design of an interface with the existing radar system. During this period Dr. PASSOS was also involved with the technical study of the new generation of supercomputers, the ETA 10.
In 1988, Dr. PASSOS was invited by the University of Campinas (one of the largest universities in Brazil) to coordinate the efforts of the development of a strategic plan for their data processing systems. Using his computer knowledge and communication skills, Dr. PASSOS provided the necessary coordination which resulted in a well defined plan. In 1990, Dr. PASSOS published one more paper related to psychological behavior and customer-provider relations.
Unfortunately, at the end of the 80's, Control Data Corporation was suffering the effects from the computer market crisis. Among the downsizing decisions was the closing of most of the international subsidiaries, including the Brazilian branch office. After 16 years working for Control Data Corporation, Dr. PASSOS decided to pursue different goals and left his employment with the Brazilian company which took over the local CDC customer base. Dr. PASSOS enrolled in a graduate study program in the USA.
In 1992, Dr. PASSOS earned his Master's Degree in Computer Science from the University of North Dakota. Dr. PASSOS was first assigned to be lab instructor for the Computer Science II class. The following semester, Dr. PASSOS was assigned as lecturer and lab instructor. This short period at the University may be considered a success, based on his evaluations received from his students, most of them Computer Science and Aerospace majors. These students qualified Dr. PASSOS as one of their best instructors. As a student, Dr. PASSOS was awarded the Computer Science Department scholarship and was nominated and accepted as a member of the Upsilon Pi Epsilon Computer Science Honors Society. Dr. PASSOS involvement in community related activities was also significant. Dr. PASSOS was an officer at the International Students Organization where he was responsible for organizing cultural meetings that became a success in the Grand Forks community. He also worked in the translation of printed books to electronic formats which would help blind students.
In 1992, Dr. PASSOS joined the graduate program at the University of Notre Dame in order to obtain his Ph.D. degree in Computer Science and Engineering. Dr. PASSOS worked under the advice of Dr. Edwin Sha in the research of loop transformations that could improve the parallel execution of multi-dimensional applications (nested loops). Dr. PASSOS assisted Dr. Sha to build up the Notre Dame Laboratory for Parallel Processing, and develop the project which is now funded by the National Science Foundation. From his publication list during his graduate program it is easy to see how productive was his research. Dr. PASSOS wrote more than 13 conference papers and 4 journal papers during this four year period. Dr. PASSOS solved several open problems by developing novel techniques such as the multidimensional (MD) retiming, MD rotation and MD interleaving. Dr. PASSOS' research obtained the best-known results in terms of execution length, memory requirement and computation complexity. One of his papers, presented at the Design Automation Conference, was nominated for the Best Paper Award. Dr. PASSOS research accomplishments were rewarded with the William Mensch Jr. Fellowship. Dr. PASSOS research topic is still under study at Notre Dame, and has provided a number of students the basis for the development of new theories. Dr. PASSOS' work has been studied as a research topic at University of Minnesota, and more recently, it has become a new source of research at University of Texas Austin and at the Ecole Polytechnique, Montreal, Canada.
In 1996, Dr. PASSOS was invited to work at Midwestern State University. In 1996, Dr. PASSOS developed a research program for the benefit of the undergraduate students aimed to the study of Loop Transformations applied to multi-dimensional problems. This project was proposed to the National Science Foundation and as May 15 it was recommended for funding. The final grant of US $ 240,000.00 for the three years project was awarded on July 21, 1997. Dr. Passos received his tenure at MSU on 1998 and a promotion to Associate Professor on 1999. In the research area, he has authored and co-authored more than 60 conference papers and 12 journal papers on instruction-level parallelism and high-level synthesis areas, involving software and hardware innovations. He was also appointed associate editor for Computer Science of the Texas Journal of Science. Dr. Passos is a regular referee for the DAC conference, IEEE Transactions on Education, and IEEE Transactions on Parallel and Distributed Systems. He is also a member of the reviewer board for the Computer Science Exit Exam. In 2001, Dr. Passos joined forces with Drs. Sajal Das and Mohan Kumar, from University of Texas at Arlington, on applying for a research grant with the Texas High Education Coordinating Board. This proposal, titled "Flexible Integrated Caching Approach (FICA) for Efficient Content Delivery in Wireless Internet" was approved for funding on October, 2001, with a total value of US $ 197,222.00 - US$ 66,000.00 awarded to Midwestern State and the remaining to UT Arlington. Two supplemental grants of US$ 8,100.00 were awarded by the THECB (2002 and 2003) for participation of a high-school teacher in the research. Dr. PASSOS is currently involved in new research projects in the fields of memory design, new software engineering methodologies in courseware authoring through the WEB, and in the continuity of the loop transformations and the web caching projects.
Dr. PASSOS professional career has always been recognized. Dr. PASSOS was nominated and accepted for the International Who is Who society, at the end of the 1999/2000 academic year, Dr. Passos received the most prestigious award at Midwestern State University, the Hardin Professor of the Year for Outstanding Academic Contributions. He also received the Department of Computer Science Professor of the Year Award for the 2000/2001 academic year, and again for 2001/2002. He was awarded 2002/2003 Faculty of the Year by the Caribbean Students Organization. He has recently served as a member of the MSU Faculty Senate, the Student Conduct Committee, the College of Science and Mathematics Faculty Research Committee and the Student Conduct Committee. Dr. Passos was nominated by the College of Science and Mathematics as a candidate for the 2004 Piper Professor Award. This nomination was later endorsed by the MSU Faculty Senate. He was also selected by the Midwestern State University Faculty as the recipient for the 2003 Faculty Award. Dr. Passos was awarded 2003/2004 Faculty of the Year by the MSU Student Government Association. On May 2004, Dr. Passos promotion to the position of Full Professor was announced by the MSU Board of Regents.
E-mail address:
nelson.passos@mwsu.edu