2017-18 Peebles Memorial Lecture in Information Technology

The 2017-18 Peebles Memorial Lecture in Information Technology was presented by Dr. Craig Stewart on April 5, 2018, in conjunction with the Research Services Expo in the Herman B Wells Library at Indiana University. Dr. Stewart, Executive Director of the IU Pervasive Technology Institute (PTI) presented "Computing and Cyberinfrastructure in support of research, scholarship, and creative activity: forward in challenging times".

Abstract: Computing resources provided and used in support of research, scholarship, and creative activities have been viewed as a common good since the early 1950s. At this time, Marshall Wrubel, astronomer and first director of the Research Computing Center at IU, established as a principle that IU's electronic computer was a resource available to the entire IU research community. Since that time, the use of computing resources - now termed "cyberinfrastructure" - has expanded to benefit all fields of scholarship, particularly humanities research, as well as the fine and performing arts. Since the late 1990s, IU has been a national leader in the use of cyberinfrastructure for accelerating innovation and expanding the capabilities of researchers.

We stand now at the beginning of what may be years of challenging times for research and higher education generally. Many current predictions hold that hundreds of small- to mid-size colleges and universities will become insolvent in coming years. In years to come, federal funding for research likely will remain constant or decrease - and certainly decrease relative to the perceived needs of the research community. At the same time, we face more diversity in the availability of computing architectures and uncertainty in processor roadmaps than we, as a national community, have faced in years. Locally sourced supercomputers, federally funded cyberinfrastructure resources, commercial cloud computing, uncertainty in processor roadmaps, the end of Moore's Law scaling, and competition from China all constitute a broad set of opportunities for the IU community and challenges to the global position of the US.

Bio: Dr. Craig Stewart leads the Pervasive Technology Institute (PTI), IU's flagship initiative for advanced IT research, development, and delivery in support of research, scholarship, and artistic performance. Dr. Stewart has extensive experience leading and managing cyberinfrastructure services that support IU researchers. Dr. Stewart has served as director of the IU Stat/Math Center and the Indiana Genomics Initiative IT Core, and as the Associate Dean and Assistant Vice President of the Research Technologies division of UITS.

Watch Dr. Stewart's lecture (via YouTube).