Cherri M. Pancake is an

ethnographer Ethnography (from Greek ''ethnos'' "folk, people, nation" and ''grapho'' "I write") is a branch of anthropology and the systematic study of individual cultures. Ethnography explores cultural phenomena from the point of view of the subject o ...

and computer scientist who works as a professor of electrical engineering and computer science and Intel Faculty Fellow at

Oregon State University Oregon State University (OSU) is a public land-grant, research university in Corvallis, Oregon. OSU offers more than 200 undergraduate-degree programs along with a variety of graduate and doctoral degrees. It has the 10th largest engineering c ...

, and as the director of the Northwest Alliance for Computational Science & Engineering. She is known for her pioneering work on

usability engineering Usability engineering is a field that is concerned generally with human–computer interaction and specifically with devising human–computer interfaces that have high usability or user friendliness. It provides structured methods for achieving ...

for

high performance computing High-performance computing (HPC) uses supercomputers and computer clusters to solve advanced computation problems. Overview HPC integrates systems administration (including network and security knowledge) and parallel programming into a multi ...

.. In 2018 she was elected for a two-year term as president of the Association for Computing Machinery.

Education

Pancake earned a bachelor's degree in

environmental design Environmental design is the process of addressing surrounding environmental parameters when devising plans, programs, policies, buildings, or products. It seeks to create spaces that will enhance the natural, social, cultural and physical environm ...

from

Cornell University Cornell University is a private statutory land-grant research university based in Ithaca, New York. It is a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1865 by Ezra Cornell and Andrew Dickson White, Cornell was founded with the intention to tea ...

, and then studied

anthropology Anthropology is the scientific study of humanity, concerned with human behavior, human biology, cultures, societies, and linguistics, in both the present and past, including past human species. Social anthropology studies patterns of be ...

Louisiana State University Louisiana State University (officially Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College, commonly referred to as LSU) is a public land-grant research university in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. The university was founded in 1860 nea ...

. After working for the

Peace Corps The Peace Corps is an independent agency and program of the United States government that trains and deploys volunteers to provide international development assistance. It was established in March 1961 by an executive order of President John F ...

Peru , image_flag = Flag of Peru.svg , image_coat = Escudo nacional del Perú.svg , other_symbol = Great Seal of the State , other_symbol_type = National seal , national_motto = "Firm and Happy f ...

, she spent ten years in Guatemala studying the Maya peoples; for over six of these years she was curator of the Ixchel Museum of Indigenous Textiles and Clothing. However, the political unrest in Guatemala in the early 1980s caused her to return to the US, where she became a graduate student in engineering at Auburn University, the first woman in the program. She received a PhD in Computer Engineering in 1986.

Career and research

For 10 years, Pancake split her time between her university appointment (first at Auburn, then at Oregon State) and an appointment as visiting scientist at the

Cornell Theory Center The Cornell University Center for Advanced Computing (CAC), housed at Frank H. T. Rhodes Hall on the campus of Cornell University, is one of five original centers in the National Science Foundation's Supercomputer Centers Program. It was formerl ...

. She performed the first usability studies of software tools for high performance computing, and found methods of improving the usability of these tools based on her knowledge of

color perception Color vision, a feature of visual perception, is an ability to perceive differences between light composed of different wavelengths (i.e., different spectral power distributions) independently of light intensity. Color perception is a part of ...

response time Response time may refer to: *The time lag between an electronic input and the output signal which depends upon the value of passive components used. * Responsiveness, how quickly an interactive system responds to user input * Response time (biolog ...

, short-term memory, and

programming error A software bug is an error, flaw or fault in the design, development, or operation of computer software that causes it to produce an incorrect or unexpected result, or to behave in unintended ways. The process of finding and correcting bugs i ...

s. For over two decades, Pancake has been active with the ACM/IEEE SC (Supercomputing) Conference, serving as general chair of SC99 and in numerous other positions. She founded the Parallel Tools Consortium in 1993 and led several software standards efforts. In 2011, she founded

SIGHPC ACM SIGHPC is the Association for Computing Machinery's Special Interest Group on High Performance Computing, an international community of students, faculty, researchers, and practitioners working on research and in professional practice related ...

and served as its chair until 2016, when she was elected Vice-President of the Association for Computing Machinery and then President in 2018. Working with Intel Corporation leaders, she established th
ACM SIGHPC/Intel Computational & Data Science Fellowships
to increase diversity in the computing field.

Awards and honors

Pancake was elected a

Fellow A fellow is a concept whose exact meaning depends on context. In learned or professional societies, it refers to a privileged member who is specially elected in recognition of their work and achievements. Within the context of higher education ...

of the Association for Computing Machinery in 2001 "for leadership contributions to usability to high performance computing tools", and became a Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers in 2003. She was honored as one of the Oregon Women of Achievement in 2006.Oregon Women of Achievement
retrieved 2015-06-11.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Pancake, Cherri M. Year of birth missing (living people) Living people American ethnographers American computer scientists American women computer scientists Cornell University College of Human Ecology alumni Auburn University alumni Oregon State University faculty Fellows of the Association for Computing Machinery Fellow Members of the IEEE Presidents of the Association for Computing Machinery American women anthropologists American women academics 21st-century American women