About me

I like mixing applied mathematics and computer science, luckily I am able to do this for living - I work on interdisciplinary topics in the area of computational mathematics and emerging parallel hardware such as GPUs, multi-core CPUs and embedded devices.

After my PhD at Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (Germany) and post-doc at Uppsala University (Sweden), I started a small start-up where we developed a fast sparse linear algebra library (called PARALUTION) with special focus on multi-core CPUs and GPUs hardware support. We had two very exciting years with various customers from super computer centers to multi-physics simulations companies. At the end, we managed a successful exit by selling the copyright of the software to one of the semiconductor giants.

Currently, I live in Silicon Valley where I work for Apple at Special Project Group. Due to the nature of the project, I cannot give any details. As a high level description, my day to day job involves a lot of C++ programming, architecture and software design, as well as intra-/extra-team communication and coordination.

Work Experience

Oct 2016 : present – Senior Software Engineer at Apple Inc., Silicon Valley, CA, USA

Jan 2015 : June 2016 – Co-founder and CEO at PARALUTION Labs, Karlsruhe, Germany

August 2012 : July 2014 – Post Doctoral Researcher, Uppsala University, Sweden
    Uppsala Programming for Multicore Architectures Research Center (UPMARC),
    Department of Information Technology, Division of Scientific Computing

Sept 2008 : June 2012 - Research Associate, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), Germany
    Shared Research Group “New Frontiers in High Performance Computing Exploiting Multicore and Coprocessor Technology”
    with collaboration partner Hewlett-Packard

Sept 2005 : June 2006 - Teaching Assistant, Technical University of Sofia, Bulgaria

April 2005 : Dec 2005 - Internal Contract, Technical University of Sofia, Bulgaria
    "Asymptotic Methods for Differential Equations. Research and Control", Contract 562/NI-10/2005

March 2003 : June 2006 - Sky Archive Data Center, Bulgarian Academy of Science
    System Support and Development of Software "Wide-field Plate Database",
    Contract I-1103/2001 with Space Research Institute, National Science Fund (NSF), Ministry of Education and Science (MES)

March 2003 : Oct 2004 - Institute of Zoology, Bulgarian Academy of Science
    System and Network Administrator

• Modern C++
• Real-time systems
• Embedded devices
• Low energy chips
• Low latency computation
  
• High performance computing (HPC)
• GPU computing
• Parallel programming / stream-based models
• Clusters and supercomputers
• Heterogeneous and homogeneous computing
• Fine-grained parallel algorithms
  
• Computational mathematics
  
• Numerical methods
  
• Modeling and simulations
  
• Software design and implementation
• Sparse graphs and matrices

Sept 2008 : Jan 2012 - Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), Germany
    Department of Mathematics, Dr. rer. nat. (Ph.D. Natural Sciences)
    Thesis: Parallel Sparse Linear Algebra for Multi-core and Many-core Platforms - Parallel Solvers and Preconditioners
    Advisor: Jan-Philipp Weiss (KIT, Germany)
    Reviewers:  Vincent Heuveline (KIT, Germany) and Richard Vuduc (Georgia Institute of Technology, USA)
    Examination grade: 1.0 (magna cum laude)
    Download (PDF)

Oct 2006 : Aug 2008 - University of Karlsruhe (TH), Germany
    Department of Mathematics, M.Sc. (Master of Science)
    2006-2008 - DAAD (German Academic Exchange Service) scholarship holder
    2007 - “DAAD-Preis für hervorragende Leistungenausländischer Studierender” - best student award
    2008 - Graduated top of the class
    Thesis: Specific Aspects of a Parallel Implementation of a 3D CFD Solver on the Cell Architecture

Feb 2005 : June 2005 - University of Ioannina, Greece
    Department of Mathematics, Erasmus student

Oct 2002 : July 2006 - Technical University of Sofia (TU-Sofia), Bulgaria
    Department of Applied Mathematics and Informatics, B.Sc. (Bachelor of Science)
    2006 – Graduated top of the class
    Thesis: Modeling of Thin Plates with Structural Defects - Finite Elements Method

Sept 1997 : May 2002 - High School ‘Electronic Systems’ (TU-ES), Sofia, Bulgaria

• Lecture assistant and co-developer of lecture slides/notes (Uppsala University, Sweden)
• "Parallel Programming for Scientific Computing" 2014 (PhD course)
  
• "Parallel Programming" ST 2013, ST 2014
  
• "High Performance Computing II: Algorithms and Applications" (NGSSC course) 2012
  
• Co-supervision of 4 Diploma (master thesis) students, 1 bachelor student (KIT, Germany)
  
• Co-supervision of seminar “Parallel Computing on GPU” WT 2011/2012 (KIT, Germany)
• Lecture assistant and co-developer of lecture slides/notes (KIT, Germany)
• “Parallel Computing” WT 2011/2012
• “Numerical Simulation in the Many-core Era” ST 2010
• Lecture assistant “Exercises with Maple” for engineers and mathematicians 1st  and 2nd semester students, WT 2005/2006, ST 2006 (TU-Sofia, Bulgaria)

• Sofia, Bulgaria Academy of Science (Institute of Information and Communication Technologies): A Library for Iterative Sparse Methods on CPU and GPU, June, 2014
• TU Delft, Netherlands: Fine-grained parallel iterative solvers in OpenFOAM - utilizing multi-core and GPU devices with PARALUTION, Setp, 2013
• Swiss National Supercomputing Centre (CSCS), Switzerland: PARALUTION, - Tutorial and hands-on, CSCS-FoMICS-USI Autumn School, Setp 2013
  
• Uppsala University, Sweden: Sparse linear algebra on heterogeneous platforms - state of art and trends, "Heterogeneous computing - impact on algorithms" ComplexHPC Spring School, June, 2013
  
• Università della Svizzera italiana, Switzerland: Iterative Preconditioned Solvers on Multi- and Many-core Platforms, July 2012
• International Workshop on Efficient Solvers in Biomedical Applications, Mariatrost, Austria: Fine-grained Parallel Solvers and Preconditioners on Multi-core CPUs and GPUs- The Next Steps in the Biomedical Engineering, July, 2012 (presented by Vincent Heuveline)
• Accelerated HPC Symposium (Organized by Los Alamos National Laboratory): San Jose, USA, Iterative Solvers for Many-core Chips - Fault Tolerant Solvers, GTC Conference, May, 2012
• NVIDIA, Santa Clara, USA: Parallel Sparse Solvers and Preconditioners for Multi- and Many-core Platforms, April 2012
• Uppsala University, Sweden: Preconditioners for multi- and many-core platforms (GPU), Division of Scientific Computing, IT, Feb, 2012
• Jülich Supercomputing Center (Forschungszentrum Jülich): Germany, Parallel preconditioners for multi-core CPU and GPU platforms, June, 2011

• D. Lukarski, M. Neytcheva: On the impact of the heterogeneous multi- and many-core platforms on iterative solution methods and preconditioning techniques, Book Chapter in “High-Performance Computing on Complex Environments”, Editors: E. Jeannot, J. Zilinskas, Publisher: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., ISBN 978-1-118-71205-4, 2014
  

• D. Hoske, D. Lukarski, H. Meyerhenke, M. Wegner: Engineering a Combinatorial Laplacian Solver: Lessons Learned, Journal Algorithms, 2016, Volume 9, Issue 4, page 72, Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute, 2016
  
• S. Engblom, D. Lukarski: Fast Matlab compatible sparse assembly on multicore computers, Journal of Parallel Computing - Systems & Applications, Vol 56, pages 1-17, DOI: 10.1016/j.parco.2016.04.001, 2016
• R. Gupta, D. Lukarski, M. B. van Gijzen, C. Vuik: Evaluation of the deflated preconditioned CG method to solve bubbly and porous media flow problems on GPU and CPU, International Journal for Numerical Methods in Fluids, vol. 80, issue 11, pp. 666-683, DOI: 10.1002/fld.4170, 2015
• N. Trost, J. Jiménez, D. Lukarski, V. Sanchez: Accelerating COBAYA3 on multi-core CPU and GPU systems using PARALUTION, Annals of Nuclear Energy, Elsevier, DOI: 10.1016/j.anucene.2014.08.005, 2014
• V. Heuveline, D. Lukarski, J.-P. Weiss: Performance of a Stream Processing Model on the Cell BE NUMA Architecture Applied to a 3D Conjugate Gradient Poisson Solver, Int. J. Computational Science, 3(5), pp. 473-490, 2009
• D. Marinova , D. Lukarski , G. Stavroulakis: Modeling and Optimal Control Design for Plates with Defects, Journal of Vibration and Control, Vol. 13, No. 9-10, 1343-1353 (2007), DOI: 10.1177/1077546307077501, 2007

Conference and Workshop Proceedings

• D. Weller, F. Oboril, D. Lukarski, J. Becker, M. Tahoori: Energy efficient scientific computing on fpgas using opencl, Proceedings of the 2017 ACM/SIGDA International Symposium on Field-Programmable Gate Arrays 2017, Pages 247-256, ACM, 2017
• E. Bergamini, M. Wegner, D. Lukarski, H. Meyerhenke: Estimating current-flow closeness centrality with a multigrid laplacian solver. In  Proc. of the Seventh SIAM Workshop on Combinatorial Scientific Computing 2016, Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics, 2016
• D. Hoske, D. Lukarski, H. Meyerhenke, M. Wegner: Is Nearly-linear the same in Theory and Practice? A Case Study with a Combinatorial Laplacian Solver. In Proc. 14th Intl. Symp. on Experimental Algorithms (SEA 2015), pp. 205-218. LNCS 9125, Springer-Verlag, 2015
• A. Dorostkar, D. Lukarski, B. Lund, M. Neytcheva, Y. Notay, P. Schmidt: CPU and GPU performance of large scale numerical simulations in Geophysics, Euro-Par 2014
  
• D. Lukarski, H. Anzt, S. Tomov, J. Dongarra: Hybrid Multi-Elimination ILU Preconditioners on GPUs, International Heterogeneity in Computing Workshop (HCW), Phoenix, 2014
• A. Dorostkar, D. Lukarski, B. Lund, M. Neytcheva, Y. Notay, P. Schmidt: Performance study of block-preconditioned iterative methods on multicore computer systems and GPU, Parallel Matrix Algorithms and Applications (PMAA14), Lugano, 2014
  
• H. Anzt, D. Lukarski, S. Tomov, J. Dongarra: Self-Adaptive Multiprecision Preconditioners on Multicore and Manycore Architectures, VECPAR 2014, Eugene, OR, 2014
  
• S. Suwelack, D. Lukarski, V. Heuveline, R. Dillmann, S. Speidel: Accurate Surface Embedding for Higher Order Finite Elements, Proceedings of the 12th ACM SIGGRAPH/Eurographics Symposium on Computer Animation 2013
  
• V. Heuveline, D. Lukarski, N. Trost, J.-P. Weiss: Parallel Smoothers for Matrix-based Geometric Multigrid Methods on Locally Refined Meshes Using Multicore CPUs and GPUs, Facing the Multicore-Challenge II, Springer, LNCS 7174, p.158, 2012
  
• V. Heuveline, D. Lukarski, C. Subramanian, J.-P. Weiss: Parallel Preconditioning and Modular Finite Element Solvers on Hybrid CPU-GPU Systems, in P. Iv́nyi, B.H.V. Topping (Eds.), Proc. of the Sec. Int. Conf. on Parallel, Distributed, Grid and Cloud Computing for Engineering (ParEng 2011), Civil-Comp Press, Stirlingshire, UK, Paper 36, 2011
• V. Heuveline, D. Lukarski, F. Oboril, M. B. Tahoori, J.-P. Weiss: Numerical Defect Correction as an Algorithm-Based Fault Tolerance Technique for Iterative Solvers, 17th IEEE Pacific Rim Int. Symp. on Dependable Computing (PRDC), 2011
• H. Anzt, W. Augustin, M. Baumann, T. Gengenbach, T., Hahn, A. Helfrich-Schkarbanenko, V. Heuveline, E. Ketelaer, D. Lukarski, A. Nestler, S. Ritterbusch, S. Ronnås, M. Schick, M. Schmidtobreick, C. Subramanian, J.-P. Weiss, F. Wilhelm, M. Wlotzka,  HiFlow3 - A Hardware-Aware Parallel Finite Element Package Proceedings, 5th Parallel Tools Workshop, Dresden, Springer, 2011
  
• V. Heuveline, C. Subramanian, D. Lukarski, J.-P. Weiss: A Multi-platform Linear Algebra Toolbox for Finite Element Solvers on Heterogeneous Clusters, Workshop on Parallel Programming and Applications on Accelerator Clusters (PPAAC), IEEE Cluster, Crete, 2011
• V. Heuveline, D. Lukarski, J.-P. Weiss: Scalable Multi-Coloring Preconditioning for Multicore CPUs and GPUs, UCHPC’10 Workshop, Euro-Par 2010 Parallel Processing Workshops, Springer LNCS Vol. 6586, pp. 389-397, 2010
• V. Heuveline, D. Lukarski, J.-P. Weiss: RapidMind Stream Processing on the PlayStation 3 for a Chorin-based Navier-Stokes Solver. In Proc. 1st Int. Workshop on New Frontiers in High-performance and Hardware-aware Computing (HipHaC 08), pp. 31 - 38, Lake Como, Italy, 2008, Universitaetsverlag Karlsruhe
• D. Marinova , D. Lukarski , G. Stavroulakis: Modeling and Optimal Control Design for Plates with Defects, Proc. MME06 (Mathematical Methods in Engineering), Ankara, Turkey, 2006
• D. G. Marinova, G.E. Stavroulakis, E.C. Zacharenakis, D.H. Lukarski: Active optimal control of damaged smart plates in bending, Proc. 6th ESMC (6th European Solid Mechanics Conference), Budapest,  Hungary, 2006
• G.E. Stavroulakis, D.G. Marinova, D.H. Lukarski,  E.C. Zacharenakis: Nondestructive Identification of defects for smart plates in bending using genetic algorithms, Proc. 3-d ECCM2006, Lisbon, Portugal, 5-8 June 2006. (ECCM2006 - III European Conference on Computational Mechanics Solids, Structures and Coupled Problems in Engineering),  Page 165, DOI 10.1007/1-4020-5370-3, ISDN  ISDN: 978-1-4020-4994-1, Springer, 2008
• D. Marinova, G.E. Stavroulakis, D.H. Lukarski: Active control of plates in bending. Modeling and influence of damage, Proc. Vol. AMEE’05 (Applications of Mathematics in Engineering and Economics), Sozopol, Bulgaria, 2005

Pre–prints / Technical Reports

• D. Hoske, D. Lukarski, M. Wegner, H. Meyerhenke: What 'Provably Fast' Can Mean in Practice: A Case Study with a Combinatorial Laplacian Solver. Extended version of SEA'15 paper.
  
• S. Engblom, D. Lukarski: Fast Matlab compatible sparse assembly on multicore computers, Preprint, 2014
  
• A. Dorostkar, D. Lukarski, B. Lund, M. Neytcheva, Y. Notay, P. Schmidt: Parallel Performance Study of Block-Preconditioned Iterative Methods on Multicore Computer Systems, Technical report 2014-007, University of Uppsala, 2014
  
• D. Lukarski, T. Skoglund: A Priori Power Estimation of Linear Solvers on Multi-Core Processors, Technical Report 2013-020, IT Uppsala University, 2013
  
• V. Heuveline, D. Lukarski, N. Trost, J.-P. Weiss: Parallel Smoothers for Matrix-based Multigrid Methods on Unstructured Meshes Using Multicore CPUs and GPUs, EMCL Preprint 2011-09, 2011
• V. Heuveline, D. Lukarski, J.-P. Weiss: Enhanced Parallel ILU(p)-based Preconditioners for Multi-core CPUs and GPUs - The Power(q)-pattern Method,  EMCL Preprint 2011-08 , 2011
• H. Anzt, W. Augustin, M. Baumann, H. Bockelmann, T. Gengenbach, T. Hahn, V. Heuveline, E. Ketelaer, D. Lukarski, A. Otzen, S. Ritterbusch, B. Rocker, S. Ronnas, M. Schick, C. Subramanian, J.-P. Weiss, F. Wilhelm: Hiflow3 - A Flexible and Hardware-Aware Parallel Finite Element Package, EMCL Preprint 2010-06, 2010

Conference and Workshop Talks

• D. Lukarski: "PARALUTION - Library for  Iterative Sparse Methods", GPU Technology Conference (GTC), San Jose, 2014
• D. Lukarski: "PARALUTION - Library for  Iterative Sparse Methods on  Multi-core CPU and GPU  Devices", NVIDIA GPU Technology Theater, Denver, SC13, 2013
• N. Trost, J. Jiménez, D. Lukarski, V. Sanchez: Accelerating COBAYA3 on multi-core CPU and GPU systems using PARALUTION, SNA+MC 2013 International Conference, 2013
• J.-P. Weiss, D. Lukarski, V. Heuveline: Parallel preconditioners and multigrid methods for sparse systems on GPUs,  SIAM Conference on Applied Linear Algebra, Valencia, June 2012
• V. Heuveline, R. Lohner, D. Lukarski, J.-P. Weiss: Advances in Hardware-aware & Heterogeneous Computing, Birds-of-a-Feather Session, International Supercomputing Conference, Hamburg, June 2012
• D. Lukarski, J.-P. Weiss: The Implications of GPUs for Parallel Numerical Simulation, Minisymposium High performance linear Algebra on GPUs, Gesellschaft für Angewandte Mathematik und Mechanik (GAMM) Conference, Darmstadt, Germany, March 26, 2012
• D. Lukarski,  J.-P. Weiss: Fine-Grained Parallel Preconditioners for Fast GPU-based Solvers, GPU Technology Conference (GTC), San Jose, May, 2012
• D. Lukarski,  J.-P. Weiss: LAtoolbox: A Multi-platform Sparse Linear Algebra Toolbox, GPU Technology Conference (GTC), San Jose, May, 2012
• H. Anzt, W. Augustin, M. Baumann, T. Gengenbach, T. Hahn, A. Helfrich-Schkarbanenko, V. Heuveline, E. Ketelaer, D. Lukarski, A. Nestler, S. Ritterbusch, S. Ronnas, M. Schick, M. Schmidtobreick, C. Subramanian, J.P. Weiss, F. Wilhelm, M. Wlotzka: HiFlow3 – A Multi-Purpose and Flexible Parallel Finite Element Package,Open Source CFD International Conference, Paris-Chantilly, France, 2011
• V. Heuveline, D. Lukarski, J.-P. Weiss: Fine-grained Parallel ILU Preconditioners with Fill-ins for Multi-core CPUs and GPUs, International Conference On Preconditioning Techniques For Scientific And Industrial Applications (Abstract Proceedings), Bordeaux, France, May, 2011

• UnConventional High Performance Computing Workshop (UCHPC), Grenoble, France, 2016, Organizing Committee and Program Committee
• Management Committee of the EU COST Action IC1305 Network for Sustainable Ultrascale Computing (NESUS), 2014, representative for Sweden
  
• UnConventional High Performance Computing Workshop (UCHPC), Portugal, 2014, Organizing Committee
• Enhancing Parallel Scientific Applications with Accelerated HPC Workshop (ESAA), Japan, 2014, Technical Program Committee
• Techniques and Applications for Sustainable Ultrascale Computing Systems Workshop (TASUS), Portugal, 2014, Technical Program Committee
• ComplexHPC Spring School 2013, "Heterogeneous computing - impact on algorithms", June 3-7, 2013, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden, Program Committee
• Facing the Multicore-Challenge Conference, Germany, 2012, Technical Program Committee
• Facing the Multicore-Challenge Conference, Germany, 2011, Technical Program Committee
  

Last update: March 2018