Some computer scientists carry out experiments in controlled laboratory environments. As a result, they may become siloed from the outside world. They create and study scenarios that are reproducible, but it comes at the cost of interactions with unpredictable human users.
Micah Beck, an associate professor in the Min H. Kao Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, has focused his research on studying information technology “in the wild,” driven by the needs of diverse large-scale communities. He wants to see how things are integrated into the real world and what people may need on a practical level.
Beck recently returned from a U.S. Fulbright Scholar Award trip to pursue research in France, where he established a closer relationship and sustained collaboration with French colleagues regarding converged infrastructure for data logistics in scientific computing during the 2024–25 academic year.
“It’s just an incredible thing. One of the great benefits of being a faculty member is that we get sabbaticals and that we have a program like Fulbright available to fund this work to broaden ourselves,” Beck said. “People gain a much deeper and more enriching understanding of the world. I have a much deeper appreciation and understanding of the culture and their society just for having lived among them for those months.”
The US Fulbright Scholar Award was Beck’s second. In 2016–17, he was awarded a Fulbright to study a new approach to universal digital connectivity in Kenya. EECS Associate Professor Hector Pulgar will be traveling during the 2025–26 academic year on a Fulbright Award.
The U.S. Fulbright program was created in 1946 in the aftermath of World War II. Fulbright scholars engage in cutting-edge research and expand their professional networks while promoting international understanding and collaboration as participants and alumni.
“To a great extent, I would say the greatest impact on myself was my own education—the broadening of my view of the world and of the field,” Beck said. “I learned things I would never have found out, and certainly, even if I read about them, I wouldn’t have experienced them in the same way as I did spending nine months in a foreign country.”
International Supercomputing
Beck’s connections in France date back 25 years through workshops conducted by EECS Professor Emeritus Jack Dongarra. Beck met international researchers and began working with a group within the high-performance computing community.
During his recent Fulbright trip, Beck collaborated on a French supercomputing project called NumPEx, which aims to promote research and development of new architectures, new software and new computing technologies to achieve exascale—where systems can perform a quintillion calculations each second.
Beck’s host in France was the Université de Picardie Jules Verne. He also visited the National Institute for Research in Digital Science and Technology (INRIA), the University of Rennes 2, and IRISA, which is one of the largest French research laboratories in the field of computer science and information technologies.
“I got an increased familiarity with the French academic system, the institutions, and the people. I now have a much better understanding of the whole European side of things,” Beck said. “I think that is a tool for working in infrastructure. Part of it is engineering and the scientific insight and the engineering that is developed from that. But an awful lot of it is politics, economics, and people.”
Future Research Opportunities
Beck worked with researchers and graduate students in France and connected them with his graduate student at UT, Daniel Mishler. During his stay, he even got in touch with a former UT colleague from two decades ago
“He worked for me as a professional developer in a group I led. He is now working with a European telecommunications consortium and doing various kinds of projects,” Beck said. “I contacted him to let him know what I was doing and see if there’s any way to make connections between European industry and the projects I was doing.”
Now that he has returned to UT, Beck plans to continue collaborating with faculty members and graduate students at the Université de Picardie Jules Verne. He hopes to share more about his experiences with students and faculty at UT and encourage them to pursue international research.
“I feel now I can go back anytime and be comfortable staying there,” Beck said. “I made connections and became comfortable with the place in a way that I really don’t think would have been possible in the other way,”
Contact
Rhiannon Potkey (rpotkey@utk.edu)