ANN ARBOR—University of Michigan professor Daniel Atkins has been appointed by the The National Science Foundation (NSF) to head the newly created Office of Cyberinfrastructure.

Atkins, a professor in the School of Information who was also its founding dean, also holds an appointment in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science in the College of Engineering. He will keep those appointments while serving with the NSF.

Atkins assumes his NSF role on June 1 and will oversee a $182 million budget.

“I cannot imagine a more ideal choice for this critical position at this critical time,” said Arden Bement, Jr., NSF director.” Not only does Dan have unparalleled leadership experience and a strong vision, but he is already very familiar with the foundation, its programs and its policies.”

The NSF created the Office of Cyberinfrastructure to make competitive, merit-reviewed awards for leading-edge, information technology-based infrastructure that is essential to science and engineering. Cyberinfrastructure includes supercomputers, data management systems, high capacity networks, digitally-enabled observatories and scientific instruments, and an interoperable suite of software and middleware services and tools for computation, visualization and collaboration.

“I am very honored and excited to be serving as the first director of the new NSF Office of Cyberinfrastructure,” Atkins said.” In many ways this opportunity integrates all of the diverse opportunities my colleagues have given me during my 34 years at the University of Michigan. It offers me another important platform for contributing to my overarching professional aspiration?leadership in the creation and use of information and computer technology in service of human learning, creativity, and well-being.”

In 2003, Atkins chaired a blue-ribbon panel of scientists that produced a report on the cyberinfrastructure needs of the United States. That report, commonly referred to as the” Atkins report,” called for the NSF to oversee a major program in cyberinfrastructure-enhanced science and engineering research and allied education for the nation.

During his career at the U-M, Atkins has made significant contributions to high-performance computer architecture. He has led or participated in the design and construction of seven experimental machines, including some of the earliest parallel computers.

Atkins developed high-speed arithmetic algorithms now widely used in the computer industry, conducted pioneering work on special-purpose architecture, including collaboration with the Mayo Clinic on development of computer-assisted tomography (CAT), and chaired the committee at Michigan that developed one of the earliest computer engineering undergraduate degree programs. More recently, his research has focused on the social and technical architecture of distributed knowledge communities.

John King, dean of the U-M School of Information, said that Atkins will help the country achieve its stated national goals.

“President Bush pointed out in his recent State of the Union address that U.S. competitiveness depends on increased scientific research in cyberinfrastructure. Dan is the ideal person to lead this initiative. He literally wrote the book on the subject,” King said.

As founding dean of the School of Information from 1992-98, Atkins guided the expansion of the Master of Science in Information program to prepare students for a broad range of information professions. Previously he served as associate dean for research and interim dean at the College of Engineering.

Former U-M President James J. Duderstadt, whose own career at the U-M has coincided with Atkins’, praised the selection.” Over the years, Dan Atkins has been widely regarded as one of the most visionary leaders in the application of information technology,” he said.” His role as founding dean of the School of Information provides strong evidence that he not only envisions the future, but he actually builds it.

“For the past several years he has been chairing NSF’s Blue Ribbon Committee on Cyberinfrastructure, and it seems only natural that he would be selected as the first leader of the subsequent effort to build NSF’s modern environment for scientific research and education.”

Also at the U-M, Atkins developed the NSF-sponsored Digital Library Initiative, including joint programs with the European Commission. He later became project director of the U-M Digital Library. Atkins helped pilot the Mellon Foundation-sponsored JSTOR Project for digitizing academic journals, now in wide use in academic libraries. These projects laid the foundation for U-M leadership in digital library production activities.

Atkins earned a doctorate in computer science and a master’s in electrical engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and a bachelor’s in engineering from Bucknell University.