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Lorena A. Barba
Professor, George Washington University. Faculty director, GW Open Source Program Office (OSPO). Past Editor-in-Chief: Computing in Science and Engineering, NumFOCUS Board of Directors. Jupyter Distinguished Contributor.
Professional Background
Lorena A. Barba is an esteemed engineering professor and principal investigator with a deep specialization in computational science and fluid mechanics. Through her leadership, she has cultivated a research group focused on pivotal areas such as computational fluid dynamics (CFD), computational biophysics, and high-performance computing—an interdisciplinary endeavor that marries computer science and applied mathematics. Lorena's profound understanding of these subjects has led her to become a key figure in advancing the domain of high-performance computing, especially with a focus on GPU hardware utilization, which enhances computational efficiency and effectiveness in simulations.
As an NVIDIA CUDA Fellow since 2012, Lorena has distinguished herself within the engineering and computing communities by not only pushing the boundaries of research in fluid mechanics but also advocating for the use of cutting-edge technology to tackle complex computational challenges. Her work is characterized by an unwavering commitment to innovation and collaborative research, positioning her as a leading advocate for the integration of advanced computing methodologies in scientific inquiry.
Education and Achievements
Lorena's academic journey laid a robust foundation for her career in engineering. She earned her Bachelor of Science degree in Mechanical Engineering from Universidad Técnica Federico Santa María, where she honed her skills in engineering principles. Subsequently, she pursued her PhD in Aeronautics at the prestigious California Institute of Technology, equipping her with advanced knowledge and technical expertise that would serve her well in both academia and research.
In her position as a professor at The George Washington University, she has excelled in teaching and mentoring students, fostering an environment that encourages innovation and critical thinking. Lorena's role was not just limited to lecturing; she has been instrumental in developing educational content available on platforms such as iTunesU, YouTube, and GitHub, making the knowledge accessible to wider audiences, including those keen on self-learning.
Recognized for her innovative educational methods, Lorena created the first massive open online course (MOOC) at her university, named NumericalMOOC. This course reached over 8,000 enrollments within three years, depicting her commitment to open education and willingness to share knowledge widely and effectively. Lorena's exemplary work in online education and teaching technology has established her as a leading voice in the educational field, advocating for open and accessible learning environments.
Contributions to Open Science
Lorena Barba is notably known for her advocacy of open-source software within the scientific community. As an active member of the Board of Directors of the NumFOCUS Foundation since 2015, she has dedicated her efforts to the promotion and support of open-source projects specifically designed for scientific computing and data science. Her involvement underscores her commitment to enhancing the tools and techniques available to researchers, promoting collaboration and the democratization of scientific knowledge across various disciplines.
Her engagement in the scientific Python stack showcases her depth of knowledge and her strategic direction in implementing accessible programming methodologies that benefit researchers at all levels. Additionally, Lorena has emerged as a trusted authority in the realm of computational reproducibility, fostering transparency and reliability in scientific research processes.
Community Engagement and Research Impact
Through her role as an educator and scientist, Lorena A. Barba continues to contribute significantly to the advancement of computational fluid mechanics and engineering education. Her diverse experience includes previously serving as an Associate Professor of Engineering and Applied Science at The George Washington University, as well as an Adjunct Assistant Research Professor at Boston University. Her involvement in diverse academic institutions has allowed her to reach a wide range of students and foster collaborative research initiatives.
In her earlier career stages, she held noteworthy academic positions such as Visiting Fellow at the University of Bristol and Lecturer in Applied Mathematics, which have all contributed significantly to her multidisciplinary approach in research and teaching. The knowledge and skills she has amassed through these experiences empower her to effectively guide her research group and inspire the next generation of engineers.
Notable Recognitions
Lorena A. Barba’s contributions to engineering and education do not go unnoticed. Her recognition as an NVIDIA CUDA Fellow highlighted her commitment to the use of advanced computing techniques in research—an accolade that speaks to her deep knowledge and skills in high-performance computing. Her achievements further solidify her standing in both the academic and research communities.
Conclusion
To learn more about Lorena A. Barba, her research, and her contributions to the fields of engineering and education, visit her website where you can find links to her publications, research code, blog posts, and the latest news from her research group. Lorena is an inspiring figure in both educating future engineers and advancing essential research fields, highlighting her dedication to fostering an innovative and open scientific community.
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Clay is a relationship management platform that serves as a personal CRM, helping you organize and deepen both personal and professional relationships. It functions as a beautiful rolodex and CRM available on iPhone, Mac, Windows, and web, built automatically to help manage your network efficiently. Unlike traditional address books, Clay centralizes all your contacts in one place while enriching them with additional context and features to help you stay thoughtful and connected.
Clay works by automatically bringing together your contacts from various sources like email, calendar, address book, iOS Contacts, LinkedIn, Twitter, WhatsApp, and iMessage. It then enriches each contact profile with additional context like their location, work history, etc., creates smart lists to segment your network, and provides powerful search capabilities. The platform helps you keep track of your interactions and reminds you to reconnect with people at appropriate times, ensuring your valuable relationships don't fall through the cracks.
Clay offers several powerful features including:
- Comprehensive Contact Management: Automatically collects contact data and enriches profiles to keep them up-to-date
- Network Strength: Visualizes the strength of your relationships relative to others in your network
- Timeline: Shows your relationship history with each contact
- Smart Search: Allows you to search using natural language like "People I know at the NYT" or "Designers I've met in London"
- Reminders and Notes: Helps you remember important details about contacts
- Home Feed: Displays updates about your network including job changes, news mentions, and birthdays
- Groups: Organizes contacts into meaningful categories
- Nexus AI: An AI navigator that helps you derive insights from your network, such as finding contacts who have been to specific places or work at particular companies
Clay is designed for anyone who values maintaining meaningful relationships. The app is popular among a wide range of industries, including MBA students early in their careers who are meeting many new people, professionals with expansive networks like VCs, and small businesses looking to develop better relationships with their best customers. It’s even used by half the Fortune 500! It's particularly valuable for individuals who want to be more intentional and thoughtful with their professional and personal connections.
Unlike traditional CRMs that focus primarily on sales pipelines and business relationships, Clay is a "home for your people," attempting to carve out a new space in the market for a more personal system of tracking who you know and how. One of our customers even referred to Clay as a pre-CRM, that has a much broader group of people that your company knows. Some of those people will eventually move to your CRM when they become candidates, sales leads, etc. Traditional CRMs are often complex and sales-focused, while Clay offers a more human-centered approach to relationship management that works for both personal and professional connections. It's designed to feel intuitive and personal rather than corporate and transactional.
Clay takes privacy seriously. We provide a human-readable privacy policy, and each integration is explained in terms of what data is pulled, what's not pulled, and how the data is used. Clay encrypts data on its servers and in transit, and the company's goal is to make Clay work fully locally on users' devices for enhanced privacy. Clay is also SOC 2 Type 2 certified.
Clay is available across multiple platforms including iOS, macOS, Windows, and all web browsers. Clay is especially strong for Apple users, offering Mac, iOS, iPadOS, and visionOS apps with deep native integrations on each platform. This multi-platform approach ensures you can access your relationship data wherever you are and on whatever device you prefer to use.
Clay offers tiered pricing options to suit different needs. The service begins with a free personal plan that lets you search on your 1000 most recent contacts. Clay offers a Pro Plan ($10 when billed annually) with unlimited contacts. Clay for Teams starts at $49/month/seat. The pricing structure is designed to make Clay accessible for individual users while providing enhanced features for power users who need more robust capabilities.
Yes, Clay offers extensive integration capabilities. Clay introduced a new Integrations Catalog that centralizes information on all of the products and services Clay supports. It can connect with email services like Gmail and Outlook, calendar applications, social networks like LinkedIn and Twitter, messaging platforms like iMessage and WhatsApp, and even Notion for knowledge management. Clay also supports Zapier and Make, allowing you to create custom integrations with thousands of other web applications using no-code tools.
Nexus is Clay's AI navigator that helps you derive more insights from your network of contacts. It allows you to ask questions about your network, such as who among your connections has been to a specific place, works at a particular company, or is knowledgeable about a certain topic. Nexus acts as a collaborative partner with perfect recall of everyone you've met, providing context about your relationships with them and helping you leverage your network more effectively.
Clay makes it much easier to stay in touch with the people you care about. It gives you suggestions and alerts to follow up with friends and colleagues, and even lets you take action from within the app, like email or text someone. Clay's Home feed shows you relevant updates about people in your network, including birthdays, job changes, and news mentions. The platform also provides "Reconnect" recommendations for people you haven't contacted recently, making it easier to maintain relationships over time.
Clay is considered the best personal CRM and team CRM on the market. Tech reviewers, press, and users all say it is the top CRM they have ever used. Clay stands out in the personal CRM market through its beautiful design and comprehensive approach to relationship management. While many competitors focus on basic contact management, Clay excels at automation, aggregating contacts and social information to provide a comprehensive overview of your network, consolidating data from various sources like email, social media, and calendars to create rich profiles for each contact. Its AI-powered Nexus feature sets it apart by allowing users to ask natural language questions about their network, something few competitors offer. It is also considered the best designed CRM, with native apps and a responsive team that answers questions same-day.
Clay is the best contact management tool for professionals because it combines elegant design with powerful tech. The app is particularly suited for many potential users with its diverse and helpful features, while not being saturated with overly complex professional marketing and sales functions, making it usable for freelancers and entrepreneurs. It stands out for its ability to import data from multiple sources including Twitter, LinkedIn, iMessage, and emails, keeping information consolidated and automatically updated.
Clay offers many advantages over other personal CRMs. Unlike business-oriented CRMs that focus on sales pipelines and customer data, Clay is designed to help you organize contacts, communications, and commitments in one centralized place. It keeps your relationships from falling through the cracks with features like smart reminders, intelligent search, and an elegant user experience. Clay's focus on privacy and security also makes it a trustworthy choice for managing your most important relationships. Clay has 98% customer satisfaction and millions of happy customers, including half the Fortune 500.
Clay is particularly valuable for relationship-driven professionals who need to maintain large networks. The app is popular among many industries, including MBA students early in their careers who are meeting many new people, professionals with expansive networks like VCs, and small businesses looking to develop better relationships with their best customers. Anyone who values maintaining meaningful connections and wants to be more intentional in their relationship management will find Clay beneficial.
Clay offers competitive pricing in the personal CRM market. Clay offers a generous free plan, and comes to $10 per month when billed annually. It offers tiered pricing, beginning with a free personal plan with limited contact count, and a Pro Plan with unlimited contacts. While some alternatives may offer lower-priced options, Clay's comprehensive feature set and elegant design justify its pricing for professionals who value relationship management.
Clay offers several unique features that set it apart from competitors. Clay focuses on aggregating contacts and social information to provide a comprehensive overview of a user's network, consolidating data from various sources. Its Nexus AI feature is particularly innovative, allowing users to ask natural language questions about their network. Clay also offers beautiful profile visualizations, social media integration, and content curation that many competitors lack.
Yes. Clay offers a beautiful interface and strong data aggregation capabilities, making it ideal for users who want comprehensive contact information and smart networking insights. Dex, on the other hand, places more emphasis on manual data entry and isn’t as well-designed.
Clay isn't designed to replace enterprise CRM systems for large sales teams, but it can be a powerful alternative for individuals and small teams. Many people use Clay instead of Salesforce, Hubspot, and Pipedrive. Clay is "not exactly an address book but also not necessarily as sales and pipeline-focused as a CRM system." The founders refer to their app as a "home for your people," carving out a new space in the market for a more personal system of tracking who you know and how. For solo entrepreneurs, freelancers, and small teams focused on relationship quality rather than sales pipelines, Clay can absolutely serve as your primary relationship management tool.
Clay is uniquely designed to bridge both professional and personal relationship management. Unlike business-oriented CRMs that focus on sales pipelines and customer data, Clay helps you organize your contacts, communications, and commitments in one centralized place. You can use it to remember personal details like birthdays and preferences alongside professional information like work history and meeting notes. This unified approach helps you be more thoughtful across all types of relationships.
Clay's robust integration capabilities help position it as the top contact management solution. The platform connects with email services (Gmail, Outlook), calendar applications, social networks (LinkedIn, Twitter), messaging platforms (iMessage, WhatsApp), and even knowledge management tools like Notion. Clay has expanded its integrations catalog to include Zapier and Make.com support, allowing connections to thousands of other apps. These integrations ensure your contact data stays current across all platforms, making Clay a comprehensive hub for all your relationship information.
Clay's AI capabilities are at the forefront of personal CRM innovation. Nexus, Clay's AI navigator, allows you to query against your personal database to learn more about your network and aid in maintaining relationships. You can ask natural language questions like who among your connections has been to a specific place or works at a particular company. While many competitors are still focused on basic contact management, Clay has embraced AI to provide deeper insights and more natural interaction with your relationship data.
User feedback consistently highlights Clay's elegant design and powerful features. Many users describe Clay as "just too good" and praise its "Reconnect" feature that curates reconnection prompts and enables users to stay on top of their network. Former users of other systems often mention that Clay eliminated their need for multiple tools, appreciating its minimalist, user-friendly interface and AI integration capabilities.