Standard Performance Evaluation Corporation

In Memoriam: Julie Reilly

The SPEC community mourns the passing of Julie Reilly, who died from an unexpected complication following a successful surgery.

Julie was a long-time member of the SPEC community and an invaluable contributor to the SPEC CPU Committee. Starting in 2004, she volunteered as a supporting contributor, handling beta testing and document review for the SPEC CPU 2006 and SPEC CPU 2017 benchmark suites.

In 2014, Julie also began serving as a volunteer editorial reviewer. From then until the SPEC CPU 2006 benchmark's retirement in January 2018, she assisted in the review of more than 18,000 published SPEC CPU 2006 results. Without her tireless efforts freeing other committee members to focus on technical work, the SPEC CPU 2017 benchmark suites would not have been released when it was, or with the same level of quality. Julie continued in that role with the SPEC CPU 2017 benchmark suites, reviewing almost all of the more than 25,000 results published to date.

In 2019, Julie earned a SPECtacular Award and was described as "the perfect reviewer: Someone with the expertise, work ethic, and unbiased approach to ensure the accuracy of more than 6,600 SPEC CPU 2017 submission results over the course of the 2018 year. In her unique volunteer role, she not only verified the accuracy of each result, but also scripted tools to automate significant portions of the review process."

In 2019, Julie also became the CPU Committee's first Editorial Reviewer under contract, continuing to lead the review of the hundreds of results submitted to the CPU Committee every two weeks. Her ongoing development of automation tools dramatically reduced the time required to manage this huge task. A tireless and committed collaborator, she was never averse to arranging her schedule to work across time zones to minimize any delays in handling results reviews.

Julie was also the wife of SPEC Board Member Jeff Reilly and the mother of two beautiful daughters. She received her Master of Science in Electrical Engineering in 1990 and held engineering positions at Vitesse Semiconductor and Infinera Corporation. She also spent more than 20 years as a library volunteer at the Sunnyvale Presbyterian Church.

Julie was a highly valued member of the SPEC CPU Committee, and her dedication, hard work and spirit will be dearly missed by the entire SPEC community. We offer our heartfelt condolences to Jeff, his daughters, and all of Julie's family and friends.