Francine Berman
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Francine Berman (born February 7, 1951)Dr. FRANCINE BERMAN
, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
is an American computer scientist, and a leader in digital data preservation and cyber-infrastructure. In 2009, she was the inaugural recipient of the IEEE/ACM-CS Ken Kennedy Award "for her influential leadership in the design, development and deployment of national-scale
cyberinfrastructure United States federal government agencies use the term cyberinfrastructure to describe research environments that support advanced data acquisition, data storage, data management, data integration, data mining, data visualization and other computin ...
, her inspiring work as a teacher and mentor, and her exemplary service to the high performance community".  In 2004, Business Week called her the "reigning teraflop queen". Berman is the former director of the San Diego Supercomputer Center (SDSC), and High Performance Computing Endowed Chair and a former professor of computer science and engineering at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD). Since 2009, she has served as vice president for research and professor of computer science at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI). In 2011, Berman was appointed co-chair of the National Academies Board on Research Data and Information (BRDI). In August 2021, Berman joined the
University of Massachusetts, Amherst The University of Massachusetts Amherst (UMass Amherst) is a Public university, public land-grant university, land-grant research university in Amherst, Massachusetts, United States. It is the Flagship university, flagship campus of the Univer ...
to establish a program in public interest technology. Berman is a Fellow of the
National Academy of Public Administration (United States) The National Academy of Public Administration (NAPA) is a United States nonprofit, non-governmental, non-partisan organization. As a Congressional charter, congressionally chartered national academy, its mission is to produce independent rese ...
.


Early life and education

Francine Berman was born in Glendale, California. She graduated from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) with a B.A. in mathematics (1973), and from the
University of Washington The University of Washington (UW and informally U-Dub or U Dub) is a public research university in Seattle, Washington, United States. Founded in 1861, the University of Washington is one of the oldest universities on the West Coast of the Uni ...
with an M.S. and a Ph.D. in mathematics (1976, 1979). Her Ph.D. thesis investigated non-standard models of propositional dynamic logic, an area in the field of theoretical computer science.


Career

Berman began her professional career as assistant professor in the Computer Science Department at
Purdue University Purdue University is a Public university#United States, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in West Lafayette, Indiana, United States, and the flagship campus of the Purdue University system. The university was founded ...
in Lafayette, Indiana. In 1984, Berman left Purdue to join the Computer Science and Engineering Department at UCSD as assistant, and then associate and full professor. In 2002, she was awarded the Endowed Chair in High Performance Computing in the Jacobs School of Engineering at UCSD. In 1999, while at UCSD, Berman founded the Grid Computing Laboratory. Research in the Grid Lab targeted applications and software environments within parallel, high performance computing, and grid environments. The lab was known for the innovative AppLeS project, which explored the development of adaptive applications that could opportunistically self-schedule in distributed environments based on ambient load and performance projections. In 2001, Berman was appointed director of the San Diego Supercomputer Center (SDSC), a lead center for the National Science Foundation's National Partnership for Advanced Computational Infrastructure (NPACI), as well as Director of NPACI itself. NPACI was a consortium of over 40 institutions whose mission was to develop national-scale cyberinfrastructure and provide supercomputing facilities to the U.S. research community. As lead institution, SDSC hosted national supercomputer facilities and collaborated widely to develop computational applications and cyberinfrastructure. Also in 2001, Berman partnered with Dan Reed, Director of the
National Center for Supercomputing Applications The National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) is a unit of the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, and provides high-performance computing resources to researchers in the United States. NCSA is currently led by Professor Bill ...
, to launch the NSF-sponsored
TeraGrid TeraGrid was an e-Science grid computing infrastructure combining resources at eleven partner sites. The project started in 2001 and operated from 2004 through 2011. The TeraGrid integrated high-performance computers, data resources and tools, an ...
. From 2001 to 2009, Berman served as SDSC's director and led an organization of several hundred researchers, scientists, and systems staff. During this time, SDSC strengthened its focus on data-intensive science, data stewardship, and data cyberinfrastructure, developed collaborations with major national and international cyberinfrastructure projects, and developed an innovative data stewardship partnership with the UCSD Libraries. Under Berman's leadership, SDSC was considered "one of the leaders, if not the leader in the country, in dealing with massive amounts of data". In 2007, Berman became co-chair of the ‘’Blue Ribbon Task Force on Sustainable Digital Preservation and Access’’. Supported by the National Science Foundation,
Library of Congress The Library of Congress (LOC) is a research library in Washington, D.C., serving as the library and research service for the United States Congress and the ''de facto'' national library of the United States. It also administers Copyright law o ...
,
Mellon Foundation The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, commonly known as the Mellon Foundation, is a New York City-based private foundation with wealth accumulated by Andrew Mellon of the Mellon family of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. It is the product of the 1969 merger ...
, U.K.
Joint Information Systems Committee Jisc is a United Kingdom not-for-profit organisation that provides network and IT services and digital resources in support of further and higher education and research, as well as the public sector. Its head office is based in Bristol with o ...
, Council on Library and Information Resources, and other organizations, the Blue Ribbon Task Force was charged to conduct a “deep dive” investigation into the economics of digital access and preservation. The Blue Ribbon Task Force released two reports: in 2008, and early 2010. These reports assessed the landscape for economic support of digital information, provided a set of recommendations addressing the development of sustainable strategies for preservation and access, and suggested a research agenda to drive further work. The Blue Ribbon Task Force reports have currently been downloaded over 120,000 times from the Task Force website. In 2009 Berman became vice president for research at
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (; RPI) is a private university, private research university in Troy, New York, United States. It is the oldest technological university in the English-speaking world and the Western Hemisphere. It was establishe ...
(2009–2012). In 2012, she became U.S. lead of the
Research Data Alliance The Research Data Alliance (RDA) is a global research community-driven organization started in 2013 by the European Commission, the US National Science Foundation and National Institute of Standards and Technology, and the Australian Department o ...
(RDA) and the Edward P. Hamilton Distinguished Professor in Computer Science at
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (; RPI) is a private university, private research university in Troy, New York, United States. It is the oldest technological university in the English-speaking world and the Western Hemisphere. It was establishe ...
.


Awards and honors

In 2009, Berman was honored as the inaugural recipient of the IEEE/ACM-CS Ken Kennedy Award. She has also been elected a Fellow of the ACM (2009), a Fellow of the
IEEE The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) is an American 501(c)(3) organization, 501(c)(3) public charity professional organization for electrical engineering, electronics engineering, and other related disciplines. The IEEE ...
(2011), and 2013 Chair of the Information, Computing and Communication Section (Section T) of the
American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) is a United States–based international nonprofit with the stated mission of promoting cooperation among scientists, defending scientific freedom, encouraging scientific responsib ...
. In 2011 Berman was appointed co-chair of the National Academies Board on Research Data and Information. Berman has been designated a “Digital Preservation Pioneer” by the Library of Congress, and served as a 2009 ACM Distinguished Lecturer. She has authored over 100 journal articles, refereed conference papers, book chapters and other publications. She is the co-editor of ‘’Grid Computing: Making the Global Infrastructure a Reality’’ with
Tony Hey Anthony John Grenville Hey (born 17 August 1946) was vice-president of Microsoft Research Connections, a division of Microsoft Research, until his departure in 2014. Education Hey was educated at King Edward's School, Birmingham and the Univer ...
and Geoffrey Fox. She was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2019.


Outreach

Throughout her career, Berman has been involved with national efforts to recruit, retain and advance women in STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) fields, and in particular, computer science. A founding member of the
Computing Research Association The Computing Research Association (CRA) is a 501(c)3 non-profit association of North American academic departments of computer science, computer engineering, and related fields; laboratories and centers in industry, government, and academia enga ...
Committee on the Status of Women (CRA-W), she served as CRA-W co-chair from 1993 to 1996. Berman served as the Chair of the board of trustees of the
Anita Borg Institute AnitaB.org (formerly Anita Borg Institute for Women and Technology, and Institute for Women in Technology) is a global nonprofit organization based in Belmont, California. Founded by computer scientists Anita Borg and Telle Whitney, the institut ...
. She has been a keynote speaker at the
Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing The Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing (GHC) is a series of conferences designed to bring the research and career interests of women in computing to the forefront. It is the world's largest gathering of women and non-binary technologi ...
and speaks frequently on data preservation and cyberinfrastructure, women in science and technology, and other topics.


Affiliations

*
Anita Borg Institute AnitaB.org (formerly Anita Borg Institute for Women and Technology, and Institute for Women in Technology) is a global nonprofit organization based in Belmont, California. Founded by computer scientists Anita Borg and Telle Whitney, the institut ...
(Board of Trustees Board Chair) *
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (; RPI) is a private university, private research university in Troy, New York, United States. It is the oldest technological university in the English-speaking world and the Western Hemisphere. It was establishe ...
(Vice President for Research and Professor of Computer Science)


References


External links


Francine Berman’s Home Page
{{DEFAULTSORT:Berman, Francine 1951 births Living people American computer scientists American women computer scientists Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute faculty University of California, Los Angeles alumni University of Washington College of Arts and Sciences alumni 21st-century American scientists 21st-century American women scientists 20th-century American scientists 20th-century American women scientists American women academics