Francine Berman

Francine Berman

Dr. Francine Berman is the Edward P. Hamilton Distinguished Professor of Computer Science, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI), prior to that she was Vice President of Research at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. A computer scientist and international leader in cyberinfrastructure, Dr. Berman has written more than 165 articles, editorials, and reports spanning the areas of high-performance computing, grid computing, scheduling, programming environments and middleware, cyberinfrastructure, and digital data stewardship and preservation. She is a Fellow of the Association of Computing Machinery (ACM) and Senior Member of the IEEE. In 2009, Dr. Berman was the inaugural recipient of the ACM/IEEE-CS Ken Kennedy Award for “influential leadership in the design, development, and deployment of national-scale cyberinfrastructure.” Berman was recently appointed by President Obama and confirmed by the Senate to be a member of the National Council on the Humanities.

Prior to joining RPI, Dr. Berman was Professor in the UCSD Department of Computer Science and Engineering, and first holder of the High Performance Computing Endowed Chair in the Jacobs School of Engineering at UCSD. From 2001 to 2009, Dr. Berman served as Director of the San Diego Supercomputer Center (SDSC) where she led a staff of 250+ interdisciplinary scientists, engineers, and technologists. As Director of SDSC, Dr. Berman led SDSC’s successful organization as a core cyberinfrastructure facility for the University of California while maintaining its leadership position as an international innovator in data cyberinfrastructure.

Dr. Berman is U.S. lead of the Research Data Alliance (RDA), a community-driven international organization created to accelerate research data sharing world-wide. In addition, she currently serves as Chair of the Anita Borg Institute Board of Trustees, as a member of the Board of Trustees of the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, and as a member of the NSF Computer and Information Science and Engineering Advisory Committee. She has served on a broad spectrum of national and international leadership boards and committees including the National Science Foundation’s Engineering Advisory Committee, the National Institutes of Health’s NIGMS Advisory Committee, as co-Chair of the National Academies Board on Research Data and Information (BRDI), and as co-Chair of a Blue Ribbon Task Force whose goal is to develop economically sustainable strategies to support digital preservation and access. For her accomplishments, leadership, and vision, Dr. Berman was recognized as a “Digital Preservation Pioneer” by the Library of Congress, as one of the top women in technology by BusinessWeek and Newsweek, and as one of the top technologists by IEEE Spectrum.