My memory on Ashish Sharma

My name is Kenji Tsuruta of Okayama University, Japan.  I was a postdoc working with Priya, Rajiv, and Aiichiro in LSU from 1994 to 1998.  My memory on Ashish is limited in his early dates as a phD student at CACS around 2002-2004.  He was the first person I met in my first visit to USC in December 2002, several months after they have moved from LSU. I spent for about a month to discuss with CACS member in the visit, but actually there are only few members were working because of the holiday season.  Ashish was kindly escorting me and my family to settle down in Los Angeles as he was living in nearby my lodging. Also, during my stay in the CACS office, he kindly shared his lunch time with me for many times. My impression on Ashish was a kind of shy but very smart. We had a common interest in visualization of large-scale molecular simulations as I was trying to introduce a visualization system, with a similar hardware to the ImmersaDesk, in my lab.  We exchanged ideas about how hierarchical data structures should be immersively and efficiently visualized. At that time, I was involved in a JST project on the hybrid classical/quantum molecular dynamics and had an interest in an efficient visualization for the simulation.  He already knew our project and was trying to map the objectives onto his own project.  I also heard several stories about CACS members from him.  I cannot recall them all but one thing I clearly remember is that some conference participant was giving his talk using a picture generated for a MD of nanocluster sintering without knowing where the result came from.  Priya was complaining because it was one of my works at LSU.

  After a few time visits to CACS during 2002-2008, I had little contact with Ashish but I knew that he had graduated with honors and started his successful career, and I thought it would go on.  Since I cannot participate in the memorial symposium for Ashish very unfortunately, I here would like to express my deepest condolences for the sadness that has befallen Ashish’s family and all (former and current) the members of CACS.

May 26, 2023 in Okayama, Japan

Kenji Tsuruta