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Meet Jane Liu and Iris Wu

Engineers Zhenping (Jane) Liu (at left) and Yingzi (Iris) Wu are helping to solve the data storage challenges at the RHIC/ATLAS Computing Facility. Together, they have built a large-scale grid-enabled storage element in the production system at Brookhaven. This system is designed to meet the requirements of ATLAS experiments to store and access very large amounts of data for local and Grid ATLAS users. The very large disk cache system known as dCache includes about 350 servers and 150 Terabytes of disk space.

“We’ve brought a level of practical reliability and functionality to the project, which is a real challenge” Liu said. “The system has been proved a great success during a series of Global Service Challenge activities. The system is expected to be expanded to petabyte scale, about 10 to 20 times its current size over the next two years.”

Liu came to Brookhaven in 2004 from Virginia Tech, where she received her master’s degree and is a Ph.D candidate in computer engineering. She received B.S. and M.S. degrees in electrical and computer engineering from the University of Science and Technology of China.

Wu came to Brookhaven from the University of Missouri where she is pursuing a master’s in health care informatics. She received B.S. and M.S. degrees in electrical engineering from Central South University of Technology, China.

Liu and Wu both work on supporting the massive amounts of data collected by RHIC. They occasionally discuss other topics of mutual concern such as raising bilingual children and providing them with healthy meals when they ask for fast food. Liu’s first daughter is due this summer. Wu has a 5-year-old son and a two-year-old daughter. “I want my children to keep their Chinese culture,” Wu said. “The most challenging thing is language. We speak Chinese at home, but I worry that it will be hard for them at school.”

When she has time, Liu loves to travel and enjoys both Chinese and American music. Wu has participated in Yamaha Music classes with her children, and likes to take them to the beach to build sand castles.

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One of ten national laboratories overseen and primarily funded by the Office of Science of the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), Brookhaven National Laboratory conducts research in the physical, biomedical, and environmental sciences, as well as in energy technologies and national security. Brookhaven Lab also builds and operates major scientific facilities available to university, industry and government researchers. Brookhaven is operated and managed for DOE’s Office of Science by Brookhaven Science Associates, a limited-liability company founded by Stony Brook University, the largest academic user of Laboratory facilities, and Battelle, a nonprofit, applied science and technology organization.