Marc A. Tunnell Email : mtunnell@purdue.edu
Education
Purdue University 2023–Present
Ph.D., Computer Science. Advised by David Gleich
Grand Valley State University 2020–2023
B.S., Computer Science & Applied Mathematics, summa cum laude
Grand Rapids Community College 2019–2020
A.S., General Studies
Work Experience
PhD Research Assistant 2023
Purdue University West Lafayette, IN
Advisor: Dr. David Gleich
Evaluating the efficacy of preconditioners in solving real-world problems, bridging the gap between theoretical
efficiency and practical performance.
Research Intern 2025–2025
Sandia National Laboratories Albuquerque, NM
Advisor: Dr. Erik Boman
Advanced GPU-accelerated ILU methods for large-scale scientific computing.
Developed parallel implementations targeting preconditioner generation efficiency.
Research Intern 2024–2024
Sandia National Laboratories Albuquerque, NM
Advisor: Dr. Erik Boman
Presented lightning talk at CSRI Summer Program 2024.
Explored in-memory accelerated preconditioners using GPU and multithreading.
Research Resident 2022–2023
Applied Computing Institute, Grand Valley State University Allendale, MI
Advisors: Drs. Erin Carrier & Zachary DeBruine
Value-Compressed Sparse Column (VCSC) and IVCSC: new sparse matrix formats for redundant data.
Research Resident 2022–2023
Applied Computing Institute, Grand Valley State University Allendale, MI
Advisors: Drs. Erin Carrier, Nathaniel Bowman, & Zachary DeBruine
Accelerated large-scale Non-negative Matrix Factorizations with CUDA, supported by Van Andel Institute and Chan
Zuckerberg Initiative.
Parallel Computing Summer Researcher 2022–2022
Los Alamos National Laboratory Los Alamos, NM
Advisor: Dr. Darren Engwirda
Developed parallel JIGSAW implementation for unstructured storm-surge meshes.
Undergraduate Researcher 2021–2022
Grand Valley State University Allendale, MI
Advisors: Drs. Erin Carrier & Nathaniel Bowman
Gaussian Process emulator for NASA Ames Mars Global Climate Model, scaling linearly in time and memory.
Supported by Kindschi Foundation competitive undergraduate fellowship.
NSF REU Research Intern 2021–2021
University of Massachusetts Dartmouth Dartmouth, MA
Advisor: Dr. Yuchou Chang
Developed CNN for EEG-based emotion recognition using Thomson Multitaper PSD features.
First use of these features in EEG-BCI research.
Publications
Journal Articles
1. Marc Tunnell, Zachary DeBruine, and Erin Carrier. Rank Suggestion in Non-negative Matrix Factorization:
Residual Sensitivity to Initial Conditions (RSIC). TMLR, 2024. https://doi.org/10.48550/ARXIV.2410.14838
2. Marc Tunnell, Nathaniel Bowman, and Erin Carrier. Fast Gaussian Process Emulation of Mars Global
Climate Model. Earth and Space Science, 2023. https://doi.org/10.1029/2022ea002743
Preprint Articles
3. Marc Tunnell and David Gleich. An Empirical Study of Conjugate Gradient Preconditioners for Solving
Symmetric Positive Definite Systems of Linear Equations. Preprint, 2025.
https://doi.org/10.48550/ARXIV.2505.20696
Conference Papers
4. Skyler Ruiter, Seth Wolfgang, Marc Tunnell, Timothy Triche, Erin Carrier, and Zachary DeBruine.
Value-Compressed Sparse Column (VCSC): Sparse Matrix Storage for Redundant Data. 2024 Data
Compression Conference (DCC), 2024. https://doi.org/10.1109/dcc58796.2024.00097
5. Marc Tunnell, Huijin Chung, and Yuchou Chang. A Novel Convolutional Neural Network for Emotion
Recognition Using Neurophysiological Signals. 2022 International Conference on Robotics and Automation
(ICRA), 2022. https://doi.org/10.1109/icra46639.2022.9811868
Posters and Abstracts
6. Seth Wolfgang, Skyler Ruiter, Marc Tunnell, Timothy Triche, Erin Carrier, and Zachary DeBruine.
Value-Compressed Sparse Column (VCSC): Sparse Matrix Storage for Single-cell Omics Data. 2024 IEEE
International Conference on Big Data (BigData), 2024.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1109/BigData62323.2024.10825091
7. Marc Tunnell and Darren Engwirda. Generating Very Large-Scale Unstructured Meshes for Storm-Surge
Modelling: Parallelizing the JIGSAW Library. AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts, 2022.
https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2022AGUFMOS52B0516T
Honors & Grants
Purdue Science Excellence Scholarship, Purdue University 2023
Summa Cum Laude, Grand Valley State University 2023
Undergraduate Research Scholar, Grand Valley State University 2023
Excellence in a Discipline Award, Computer Science, Grand Valley State University 2023
Outstanding Senior Award, Mathematics, Grand Valley State University 2023
Kindschi Undergraduate Research Fellowship in the Sciences 2022
AGU Travel Grant, Grand Valley State University 2023
Michigan Competitive Scholarship, State of Michigan 2020–2023
Dean’s List Recipient, Grand Valley State University 2019–2023
Technical Skills
Programming: C++, C, Julia, Python, MATLAB, etc.
HPC and Libraries: MPI, CUDA, Kokkos, OpenMP, cuSPARSE/cuBLAS, various Python/Julia scientific
libraries
Tools: Git, Linux, Slurm, etc.
Talks & Presentations
Oral Presentation
•
Generating Very Large-Scale Unstructured Meshes for Storm-Surge Modelling: Par-
allelizing the JIGSAW Library. Los Alamos, NM
2022
•
Novel Convolutional Neural Network for Emotion Recognition Using Neurophysio-
logical Signals. Philadelphia, PA
2022
•
A Novel Convolutional Neural Network for Emotion Recognition Using Neurophys-
iological Signals. Dartmouth, MA
2021
Lightning Talk
•
Parallel Incomplete LU Factorizations Based on Alternating Triangle Solves. Sandia
National Laboratories
2024
Poster Presentation
•
Generating Very Large-Scale Unstructured Meshes for Storm-Surge Modelling: Par-
allelizing the JIGSAW Library. Chicago, IL
2022
•
Accelerating Large Scale Non-Negative Matrix Factorizations with CUDA. Grand
Rapids, MI
2022
•
Fast Gaussian Process Emulation for Mars Global Climate Model. Ann Arbor, MI 2022
•
Fast Gaussian Process Emulation for Mars Global Climate Model. Allendale, MI 2022
Teaching
CS 515 Numerical Linear Algebra (GTA)
Purdue University, Department of Computer Science West Lafayette, IN
Supported graduate NLA: office hours, recitations, grading.
Service
Graduate Student Senate – Constitution Review Committee 2024
Purdue University West Lafayette, IN
Committee member focusing on bylaws modernization.
Graduate Student Senate – Treasurer 2025
Purdue University West Lafayette, IN
Serving as Treasurer, responsible for budgeting and financial oversight.
Professional Activities
Reviewer 2023–2023
AGU Travel Grant Applications Virtual
Reviewed student travel grant applications for the AGU Fall Meeting 2023.
Membership
IEEE 2022–Present
Pi Mu Epsilon Mathematics Society 2022–Present
Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics 2021–Present
Mathematical Association of America 2021–Present
Conferences & Workshops
Workshop on Sparse Tensor Computations, UIUC, Chicago, IL 2023–2023
American Geophysical Union Fall Meeting, AGU, Chicago, IL 2022–2022
West Michigan RUGS Conference, Van Andel Institute, Grand Rapids, MI 2022
IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation, IEEE, Philadelphia, PA 2022–2022
Midwest Numerical Analysis Day, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 2021–2022
Mathematical Association of America, West Michigan, MAA, Grand Rapids, MI 2022–2022
Mars Global Climate Model Workshop, NASA Ames, Virtual 2021–2021
Data Science Day, Columbia University, Virtual 2021
