News

KINBER Announces New Officers, Directors and KINBERCON 2017 Dates October 14, 2016

At its annual board meeting, the Keystone Initiative for Network Based Education and Research (KINBER) announced its board officers, new board directors and plans for KINBERCON 2017, the organization’s annual conference.

“Through the leadership of strong officers and directors, KINBER is poised to continue its record growth and collaborative role as a trusted technology resource and partner in Pennsylvania,” said Wendy Huntoon, KINBER president and CEO. KINBER experienced a 24 percent increase in connected organizations during the past fiscal year, with 83 organizations connected to KINBER’s statewide high-performance Pennsylvania Research and Education Network, also known as PennREN.

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NSF awards $110 million to bring advanced cyberinfrastructure to nations scientists, engineers August 23, 2016

The National Science Foundation (NSF) announced a $110 million award to the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and 18 partner institutions to continue and expand activities undertaken through the Extreme Science and Engineering Discovery Environment (XSEDE).

A virtual organization that has become the cornerstone of the nation’s cyberinfrastructure ecosystem, XSEDE, which received initial NSF funding in 2011, accelerates open scientific discovery and broadens participation in advanced computing by lowering the barriers for researchers, engineers and scholars to use and access computing resources. Under the new five-year award, called XSEDE 2.0, the organization will maintain existing services to its large user community and add innovative elements in response to ever-evolving user demands and supporting technologies.

“XSEDE 2.0 will continue to expand access to NSF-funded cyberinfrastructure resources and services available to the science and engineering community across the nation,” said Irene Qualters, director for the Division of Advanced Cyberinfrastructure (ACI) at NSF. “The nation’s discovery and innovation enterprise requires a dynamic and highly interoperable ecosystem that can anticipate and respond to new instruments, new computing capabilities, new research communities and new expertise. XSEDE 2.0 is a critical human component in NSF’s advanced computing infrastructure strategy, seeking to enable the broad and deep use of computational and data-intensive research to advance knowledge in all fields of study.”

The project aligns with the objectives of the National Strategic Computing Initiative (NSCI) — a whole-of-government effort that fosters a coordinated federal strategy in high-performance computing (HPC) research and deployment. NSF serves as one of the initiative’s three lead agencies.

XSEDE 2.0 supports NSCI’s goals. These include holistically expanding the capabilities and capacity of a robust and enduring national HPC ecosystem and contributing the educational and workforce development necessary to prepare current and future researchers and technical experts.

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NJEDge.Net to Welcome New President and CEO in September August 18, 2016

NJEDge.Net has hired Samuel Conn, Ph.D., as its new president and CEO, effective Sept. 12, 2016, after a long and extensive search. Dr. Conn will take the reins of NJEDge.Net from founder, outgoing president and CEO, George G. Laskaris.

NJEDge.Net, housed at and staffed by New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT), is a nonprofit research and education network that fosters and supports the productive use of new and emerging technologies across the academic enterprise. The organization was established in 2000 and today serves more than 60 members that include primarily higher-education institutions, as well as K-12 schools and health-care systems. NJIT  President Joel S. Bloom serves as treasurer on the NJEDge.Net Board of Trustees.

“Since its inception, NJEDge.Net has been a frontrunner in supporting the technology needs of the New Jersey higher-education community,” remarked Steve Rose, chair of the NJEDge.Net Board of Trustees and president of Passaic County Community College. “Dr. Sam Conn is a visionary leader who we are confident can take our organization to the next level in helping New Jersey’s colleges and universities thrive and excel into the future.”

Dr. Conn joins NJEDge.Net from State University of New York Empire State College, where he was executive vice president for finance, administration and information technology, as well as chief information officer. He brings more than 35 years of combined military, professional, industry and academic experience in the field of technology and information systems. He began his work in higher education in 2001 with a focus on information-technology management, administrative and educational technologies, e-learning networks and online program construction and management. His service to academe includes leadership positions in information technology at Regis University, Virginia Tech, Georgia Military College and Southern Polytechnic State University.

Dr. Conn is a member of the Information Systems Audit and Control Association and a distinguished member of Upsilon Pi Epsilon Honor Society in the Computing Sciences. He is widely published in the fields of information systems, educational technology, e-learning networks, cyberlearning, system development methodologies and epistemic-belief research. He holds a BSci in business administration, an MSci in computer information systems and a doctorate in information systems.

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