National Science Foundation directorto give keynote lecture at Caltech symposium

PASADENA-Rita Colwell, director of the National Science Foundation, will be keynote speaker during an October 27-28 symposium on information technology at the California Institute of Technology.

According to Paul Messina, assistant vice president for scientific computing at Caltech and director of Caltech's Center for Advanced Computing Research (CACR), Information Technology at the Turn of the Century: A Computational Science Perspective will focus on the interplay between computational science and information technology and the implications for the next century.

"In particular, the symposium will address recent changes brought on by information technology," Messina says. "The requirements of computational science have traditionally driven many aspects, both hardware and software, of information technology," says CACR executive director James C. T. Pool.

"With the advent of systems developed from commodity hardware and software components and the increasing role of networks and visualization, computational science now depends increasingly on trends stimulated by other areas of information technology," Pool says.

According to Steve Koonin, Caltech vice president and provost, "Simulation, communication, and data analysis have become integral to all of science and engineering. We must learn how to exploit and leverage technology developments to keep the research enterprise vital."

Rita Colwell will present a talk entitled "Information Technologies and the New Sociology of Science." Other confirmed speakers, in addition to Colwell, Koonin, and Messina, will include Ken Kennedy, director of the Center for Research on Parallel Computation at Rice University and cochair of the President's Information Technology Advisory Committee; Andy van Dam, professor of computer science at Brown University; Gil Weigand, deputy assistant secretary for research development and simulation, Defense Programs, U.S. Department of Energy; Tom Defanti, director, Electronic Visualization Laboratory and professor of electrical engineering and computer science, University of Illinois at Chicago; Sid Karin, director, National Partnership for Advanced Computational Infrastructure and professor of computer science and engineering, UC San Diego; Paul Dimotakis, John K. Northrop Professor of Aeronautics and professor of applied physics at Caltech; Mark Ellisman, director of the Center for Research on Biological Structure and the National Center for Microscopy and Imaging Research at UC San Diego; and Paul Woodward, director of the Laboratory for Computational Science and Engineering at the University of Minnesota.

The symposium will be held in Ramo Auditorium on the Caltech campus under the sponsorship of CACR.

Although the event is free, registration is required for attendance.

Additional information on the event and on-line registration are available at http://www.cacr.caltech.edu/it2kcs, or by calling (626) 395-6953.