Daniel Laney is a computational scientist at the Center for Applied Scientific Computing.  Daniel's research and development efforts include high performance computing workflow and data management methods, simulated radiographic diagnostics, scientific visualization, and applications of machine learning to scientific data analysis.  During his tenure at LLNL he has been a member of a large scale multi physics code team (10 years), contributed to or led multiple research efforts and led the Workflow Project in the Weapons Simulation and Computing Computational Physics program, which encompassed meshing, code-to-code linking, workflow and data management, and visualization and analysis efforts.  Daniel was also PI of the ExaWorks project in the Exascale Computing Project (ECP), which brought together HPC workflow leaders from Argonne, Oakridge, and Brookhaven national laboratories.  In December 2025 Daniel joined the North American Energy Resilience Model project, a multi-lab effort to model the nation's energy systems, as the Architecture and Infrastructure lead.  Daniel is also involved in strategic efforts aimed at data governance, data management, and data engineering related to the Strategic Deterrence directorate.

Daniel earned a Ph.D. in Engineering - Applied Science at the University of California, Davis in 2002 and a B.S. in physics from the College of Creative Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara in 1996.  He joined LLNL in 2002, and currently leads the HPC Workflow project in the Weapons and Complex Integration Directorate.

Professional Service

Technical Program Committee Member, Supercomputing 2011, 2012, and 2013.

Publications

Alsaadi, A., Hategan-Marandiuc, M., Maheshwari, K., Merzky, A., Titov, M., Turilli, M., ... & Laney, D. (2025). Exascale workflow applications and middleware: An exaworks retrospective. The International Journal of High Performance Computing Applications, 39(4), 579-593.

Aymen Al-Saadi, Dong Ahn, Yadu Babuji, Kyle Chard, James Corbett, Mihael Hategan, Stephen Herbein, Shantenu Jha, Daniel Laney, Andre Merzky, Todd Munson, Michael Salim, Mikhail Titov, Matteo Turilli, Thomas Uram, Justin Wozniak,“ExaWorks: Workflows for Exascale”, 16th Workshop on Workflows in Support of Large-Scale Science, 2021. Simulations”, IEEE Intl. Conf. on Machine Learning and Applications, 2016.

Karlin I, Bhatele A, Keasler J, Chamberlain BL, Cohen J, Devito Z, Haque R, Laney D, Luke E, Wang F, Richards D., Exploring traditional and emerging parallel programming models using a proxy application. In IEEE 27th International, Symposium on Parallel & Distributed Processing (IPDPS), 2013.

Best paper nominee: Laney, D. E., Lindstrom, P., Weber C., Langer, S., Wegener, A., "Assessing the Effects of Data Compression in Simulations Using Physically Motivated Metrics", Supercomputing 2013.

Garung, T., Laney, D. E., Lindstrom, P., Rossignac, J., "SQuad: Compact Representation for Triangle Meshes", Eurographics, 2011.

Winner:  Best Application Paper at IEEE Visualization 2006
Laney, D. E., Bremer, P-T, Mascarenhas, A., Miller, P., Pascucci, V., "Understanding the Structure of the Turbulent Mixing Layer in Hydrodynamic Instabilities", Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics, presented at Visualization 2006, Baltimore, MA, October 2006.  Also available as UCRL-JRNL-222696

Laney, D. E.,Callahan, S. P., Max, N., Silva, C. T., Langer, S., Frank, R., "Hardware Accelerated Simulated Radiography", In Proc. of IEEE Visualization, Minneapolis, MN, October, 2005. Also available as UCRL-CONF-214415.

D. E. Laney and V. Pasuccci, "Progressive Compression of Volumetric Subdivision Meshes", In Proc. of~ International Symposium on 3D Data Processing, Visualization, and Transmission, 2004.  Also available as UCRL-CONF-203679.

V. Pascucci, D. E. Laney, R. Frank, G. Scorzelli, L. Linsen, B. Hamann, F. Gygi, "Real-Time Monitoring of Large Scientific Simulations", In Proceedings of the 18-th annual ACM Symposium on Applied Computing, March, 2003, Melbourne, FL, pp.194-198.

D. E. Laney, M. B. Bertram, M. A. Duchaineau, and N. L. Max, "Multiresolution distance volumes for progressive surface compression", In Proc. 3D Data Proc. Vis. and Transmission, 2002.  Also available as UCRL-JC-146852.

M. B. Bertram, D. E. Laney, M. A. Duchaineau, "Wavelet representation of contour sets",  In Proc. IEEE Visualization 2001, pp. 303-310 and 566.  Also available as UCRL-JC-144651.

D. E. Laney, M. A. Duchaineau, and N. L. Max, "A selective refinement approach for computing the distance functions of curves". In  Proc. of the Joint Eurographics - IEEE TCVG Symposium on Visualization, pp. 213-222, Springer-Verlag, 2001. Also available as UCRL-JC-142632.

R. A. Garcia, D. E. Laney, S. M. Parsons, and H. G.Hansma, "Substructure and responses of cholinergic synaptic vesicles in the atomic force microscope",  J. Neurosci. Res., 52(3):350-355,1998.

D. E. Laney, R. A. Garcia, S. M. Parsons, and H. G. Hansma,  "Changes in the elastic properties of cholinergic synaptic vesicles as measured by atomic force microscopy",  Biophys. J., 72:806-813, 1997.

H. G. Hansma, I. Revenko, K. Kim, and D. E. Laney.  "Atomic force microscopy of long and short double-stranded, single-stranded and triple-stranded nucleic acids",  Nucleic Acids Res., 24(4):713-720, 1996.

H. G. Hansma, D. E. Laney, I. Revenko, K. Kim, and J. P. Cleveland,  "Bending and motion of DNA in the atomic force microscope",  Biol. Struct. Dyn., 2:249-258, 1996.

H. G. Hansma, D. E. Laney.  "DNA binding to mica correlates with cationic radius: assay by atomic force microscopy", Biophysical Journal, 70:1933-1939, 1996.

H. G. Hansma, D. E. Laney, M. Bezanilla, R. L. Sinsheimer, and P. K. Hansma, "Applications for atomic force microscopy of DNA", Biophys. J., 68:1672-1677, 1995.

M. Bezanilla, S. Manne, D. E. Laney, Y. L. Lyubchenko, and H. G. Hansma, "Adsorption of DNA to mica, silylated mica and minerals:  characterization by atomic force microscopy", Langmuir, 11:655-659, 1995.