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Sid Karin, founding director of the San Diego Supercomputer Center (SDSC) and the National Partnership for Advanced Computational Infrastructure (NPACI), will assume a new role as Senior Strategic Advisor to the SDSC director. Internationally recognized computer scientist Francine Berman will become director of SDSC and NPACI, UCSD Chancellor Robert Dynes announced today. The appointments will take effect February 23, 2001.

As director for the past 16 years, Karin transformed SDSC from a resource for high-performance technology to a national computational science and engineering laboratory with a broad research agenda in computer science, scientific applications and education. In 1997, Karin spearheaded UCSD's successful proposal to lead NPACI, one of only two National Science Foundation-funded partnerships of their kind in the nation. Having shepherded SDSC through this evolution, Karin requested the opportunity to return to hands-on computing and communications research and development. In his new position, Karin will be a strategic adviser to the SDSC director and consultant to Chancellor Dynes on computing and communications issues; he also will continue as a professor of computer science and engineering at the UCSD Jacobs School of Engineering.

Berman, a UCSD professor of Computer Science and Engineering since 1984, was involved in the early development of both SDSC and NPACI and has worked in high-performance computing for 20 years. She is a pioneer in parallel distributed computing in which networks of computers work together to process complicated scientific problems. Berman developed software that enables users to take full advantage of the computing power available through networks of computers. The founder of UCSD’s Parallel Computation and Grid Computing Laboratories, her research has focused on developing adaptive applications and middleware that promotes performance in dynamic, networked multi-user environments. A Fellow of the Association for Computing Machinery, Berman is a leader in NPACI’s metasystem research and the California Institute for Telecommunications and Information Technology’s software research.

"The coming decade will be an exciting and revolutionary time for the field of high-performance computing," Berman said. "We will build on the existing strengths of SDSC and NPACI, including data-intensive computing, high-performance computing, and networking, while supporting the national research community. I look forward to working with the highly talented researchers and staff of SDSC, my fellow UCSD faculty members, and NPACI's network of partners to move our research information infrastructure into the future."

"Under Sid's extraordinary direction and leadership, SDSC and NPACI have become national leaders in computational science and engineering," said Dynes. "His accomplishments have shaped the field of high-performance computing and fostered academic research in all fields. Fran has the remarkable combination of expertise and vision needed to build on this legacy and help shape the future of computational science and engineering."

"Fran's prominence in both high performance computing and grid infrastructure makes her an ideal choice to lead SDSC and the NPACI program as they meet the continuing challenges of the Internet age," said Robert Conn, Dean of the UCSD Jacobs School of Engineering.

"The NSF salutes Sid Karin for his many years of national leadership and vision for high-performance computing and computational science," said Bob Borchers, Director of the National Science Foundation’s Advanced Computing Infrastructure Research Division. "And we are looking forward to working closely with Fran Berman in the coming years."

"It has been my great pleasure to work with the world-renowned professionals at SDSC and NPACI. Their work in computational and computer science has contributed to significant progress in many scientific disciplines," said Karin. "I look forward to staying involved with the program while recharging my technical batteries. I am delighted to hand the leadership to Fran Berman, who will continue the growth and success of SDSC and NPACI in the new millenium."

Karin, a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, predicts that the coming years hold great promise for SDSC and NPACI. He foresees that initiatives in scientific data management and analysis, petaflop scale computing, computational biology and bioinformatics, and extreme networking are just a few areas in which SDSC will play a key role.

A research unit of UCSD, SDSC is leading the effort by NPACI to deploy the national computational environment that will foster tomorrow's scientific discovery.