Rensselaer presidential event to feature five national leaders in science and technology

Troy, N.Y. – To celebrate the grand opening of the world’s most powerful university-based supercomputing center, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute will host a presidential colloquy Sept. 7 featuring five of the country’s foremost leaders in science, technology, and innovation.

America’s pre-eminence in information technology is one of the primary factors behind the nation’s leadership position in the world of science. The presidential colloquy at Rensselaer will examine how the United States can best develop and tap its IT infrastructure to maintain its position as a global leader — to explore radically new approaches to harness computational tools to advance discovery and innovation in the 21st century.

The colloquy, titled “The Future of Computationally Enabled Discovery and Innovation,” will include the following participants:

• Shirley Ann Jackson (moderator)
  President, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
  
  
• Arden L. Bement Jr.
  Director, National Science Foundation
  
  
• John E. Kelly III
  Senior Vice President & Director of Research, IBM Corporation
  
  
• John H. Marburger III
  Science Advisor to the President, Director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy
  
  
• Charles M. Vest
  President, National Academy of Engineering

The discussion will be held from 10:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. in the auditorium of the Darrin Communications Center Room 308 on the Rensselaer campus. It will be followed immediately by a “virtual ribbon-cutting ceremony” featuring President Jackson, John Kelly, and New York State Senate Majority Leader Joseph L. Bruno.

The Computational Center for Nanotechnology Innovations (CCNI), the result of a $100 million partnership involving Rensselaer, IBM, and New York state, was recently ranked seventh in the world, and it is the most powerful of any system based at a university, according to the 29th edition of the closely watched Top500 list. The center is designed to continue advancing semiconductor technology to the nanoscale, while also enabling key nanotechnology innovations in the fields of energy, biotechnology, new materials, arts, and medicine.

As part of the CCNI grand opening celebration, Rensselaer also is hosting a National Science Foundation symposium about cyber-enabled discovery and innovation. The event, which will be held Sept. 5 and 6, will feature technical presentations by scientists and engineers addressing the complexity of the interactions of cyber and physical worlds.

The Sept. 7 colloquy will be Web cast live and archived. More information is available online at: http://www.rpi.edu/ccni/colloquy.

Contact: Michael Mullaney
Phone: (518) 276-6161
E-mail: mullam@rpi.edu