Sheila Faulkner

Sheila Faulkner of San Ramon died Jan. 6 after a brief illness. She was 66.

Faulkner was born in Detroit, Mich., in 1947. She received her bachelor's and master's degrees in chemistry from Oakland University, Rochester, Mich., in 1970 and in 1976 received her doctorate in chemistry from the University of Minnesota. She went on to complete postdoc work at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, Va., and then spent many years working for Cray Research, Inc. She also worked as a scientific consultant for NASA at the Ames Research Center.

In 2004, Faulkner joined Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) and worked in the Livermore Computing Center (LC) as a technical consultant for their hotline. She was also responsible for testing LC's systems through her extensive synthetic workload framework, which simulates typical user workloads. She was passionate about testing and often served as an advocate for LC's users.

Faulkner enjoyed following the national hockey league, cooking and working.

She is survived by her wife of 39 years, Kenette.

Friends who wish to honor her memory with a donation may send it to the Monterey Bay Aquarium.