Honoring a lost colleague and leader, Scott Collis

Scott came to Sandia National Laboratories after an Assistant Professorship at Rice University. Though he started his studies in aerospace engineering, he finally settled on and obtained his PhD in mechanical engineering and followed a path into computational research. He spent nearly 20 years of distinguished service at Sandia in Albuquerque, New Mexico. A conference room in Sandia’s Computer Science Research Institute, located in the Sandia Science and Technology Park was dedicated to Scott in March 2023 in honor of his work and service at Sandia.

Scott’s ability to lead was quickly recognized by leadership and he rose through the management ranks to Director of Sandia’s Center for Computing Research. He also served as Director of Sandia’s DOE/NNSA Advanced Simulation and Computing program and as Program Executive for Sandia’s DOE/Office of Science Advanced Scientific Computing Research program.  

“Staying on the forefront of research is critical for a national laboratory,” Scott asserted in a rare video meeting chat with friends and colleagues in the months before his death. “Historically, it is really important to have an institution that helps build bridges for the laboratory, to academia and to industry. For us, this has been the Computer Science Research Institute that we use to host visitors and foster collaboration.” 

Scott fostered a highly collaborative environment and helped create a wide range of programs where computing was key, including computing for energy and climate applications; quantum, neural-inspired, and other non-conventional computing concepts; and exascale supercomputing architectures and implementations. Under his directorship he saw the development of two new applications critical to the weapons program that will take advantage of El Capitan, the exascale computing platform for NNSA that will be sited at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.  

Scott maintained an attitude of people first. He was a visionary and a leader in forming teams and partnerships that made it possible for those he worked with to accomplish extraordinary work, such as that which is represented in this report. He is greatly missed, but his proud legacy of excellence continues.

Scott passed away in September 2022 at the age of 55 from a rare and aggressive cancer. Though his life was cut short, the impact of his life to Sandia and to the nation is far-reaching.