Congratulations are in order for a new member of the HPC Horizons Online Community! I just heard that Donald L. Paul. PhD, former CTO of Chevron, has been named Executive Director of the University of Southern California Energy Institute (EI). You can read the entire press release online at the USC site.
As the CTO for Chevron, Don long advocated the paradigm that “energy and IT co-evolve,” meaning that “IT has been, is now, and will be even more so in the future embedded in the production, distribution, and utilization of fuel and power.” When asked about his future plans for the EI, Don said that while he “is still developing the full architecture of the USC Energy Institute, certainly ‘the intersection of Energy and IT’ will be one of the major themes.” And when Don thinks of IT, he means “Big IT – HPC, massive networks and massive data volumes, universal digitization and connectivity, robotics, the human-digital interface, etc.”
Launched in 2008, the USC Energy Institute aims to build a community of energy and environmental researchers, expand research and education programs, engage outside companies and agencies, and help form good policy. The multidisciplinary institute brings together researchers and practitioners in science, business, technology and government to look at the most pressing issues in energy facing society today.
On behalf of the HPC Horizons Community, we all wish Don the best of luck and he let me know that he plans to keep in touch as there will be much more to report later on!