A University of
Michigan professor whose work has made it easier for scientists to
collaborate online across the globe has been named the 2008 recipient of
the distinguished Paul Evan Peters Award.
Daniel E. Atkins, a professor in the School of Information and in the
Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, and the
inaugural Director of the Office of Cyberinfrastructure at the National
Science Foundation (NSF), received the biannual award from the Coalition
for Networked Information (CNI), the Association of Research Libraries
(ARL), and EDUCAUSE.
The award recognizes notable, lasting achievements in the creation and
innovative use of information resources and services that advance
scholarship and intellectual productivity through communication networks.
Atkins research has focused on distributed knowledge communities and
open learning resources. He has directed several large experimental digital
library projects as well as projects to explore the socio-technical design
and application of "collaboratories," or virtual laboratories, for
scientific research.
His work in this area led the National Science Foundation (NSF) to ask
him in 2003 to chair an NSF Blue-Ribbon Advisory Panel on
Cyberinfrastructure. That panel issued the highly influential report
Revolutionizing Science and Engineering through Cyberinfrastructure, now
referred to as "The Atkins Report," which catalyzed new priorities and led
to the establishment of the Office of Cyberinfrastructure (OCI) at NSF.
In June 2006, Atkins joined NSF, on leave from the University of
Michigan, to lead the cyberinfrastructure effort. Under his direction, the
OCI supports the resources, tools, and services essential to the conduct of
21st-century science and engineering research and education. These include
supercomputers, information management systems, high-capacity networks,
digitally enabled observatories and scientific instruments, and software
and tools for computation, visualization, and collaboration.
Atkins joins a short but distinguished list of previous winners: Tim
Berners-Lee, developer of the World Wide Web; Vinton Cerf, creator of the
TCP/IP protocol on which the Internet runs; Brewster Kahle, founder of the
Internet Archive (a.k.a., the Wayback Machine); and Paul Ginsparg, founder
of the huge arxiv.org pre-print archive.
From 1992 to 1998, Atkins served as the founding dean of the University
of Michigan's School of Information, the first school of its kind in the
nation. This professional graduate school, which "embraces a vision that
harmonizes people, information systems, and organizations to improve the
quality of life," was instrumental in shaping the concept of iSchools
nationally.
Atkins also served as Associate Dean for Research at the University of
Michigan College of Engineering, where he presided over the formation of
one of the first and most effective distributed computing environments in
higher education.
Named for CNI's founding director, the award will be presented during
the CNI Membership Meeting in Minneapolis to be held April 7-8, 2008, where
Atkins will deliver the Paul Evan Peters Memorial Lecture.
Source: University of Michigan School of Information
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