Ken Edgecombe

Dr. Edgecombe holds a Masters and a Ph.D. in Theoretical Chemistry from Dalhousie University. His research interests have ranged from drug design, protein structure, and solid state calculations to the application of topology to chemical systems (and other non-chemistry areas) and the understanding of basic atomic and molecular structure. He is an inventor with 2 patents and an author of 27 refereed publications, two of which have been used in textbooks to illustrate concepts with one cited over 7000 times in refereed publications.

In addition to holding teaching and research positions at Queen’s University, he was the Program Manager for High Performance Computing (HPC) in the Scientific and Technical Systems and Solutions group of IBM North America from 1995-97. During the period from 1997 to 2015 he built the High Performance Computing Virtual Laboratory (HPCVL) centred at Queen's University (partnered with 4 other universities and 3 colleges) into a $200M self-funded innovative research environment through partnerships with industry and funding agencies. Through a partnership with Sun Microsystems, HPCVL was able to fund 125 Scholarships and 3 research Chairs at member institutions. HPCVL was selected by Backbone magazine in March 2013 as one of the “Best 10 Research Facilities” in Canada. Built as a secure research environment, HPCVL enabled the medical research community to build environments that met compliance requirements. He served as the Chief Technology Officer for the Centre for Advanced Computing (CAC) (formerly HPCVL) from 2015 to 2017 and from 2017-2019 as the Director of the Cognitive Analytics Development HUB of the CAC.
 

His current interests include extending the computing “cloud” to research needing secure Advanced Research Computing, long-term and archival storage, access to digital research data and applying reliable Cognitive Analytics to real world problems. His service to the national  community included membership on numerous committees including the National Initiatives Committee of Compute Canada and the Ontario HPC Council. He has served as Conference Chair for the High Performance Computing Symposium 2009 and Program Chair in 2017. In 2010 he was named the Carl C. Coffin Lecturer in the Department of Chemistry, Dalhousie University. In 2013 and 2014, he organized and chaired the symposium Complex Data and Analytics in Medical Research held in Toronto. He has been and continues as a member of the Board of Indoc Research and was a part of the Indoc Consortium management team who were responsible for developing Brain-CODE for the Ontario Brain Institute.  He continues to serve on the Queen's University Department of Chemistry Innovation Council.

Awards:

2010    Carl Coffin Lecturer, Department of Chemistry, Dalhousie University

2021    RCA, Colonel Commandants Coin

2022    Ontario Volunteer Service Award (15 years)