Ian Foster

Ian is an internationally renowned computer scientist with a long record of influential contributions in high-performance computing, distributed systems, and data-driven discovery. Sometimes referred to as the “father of the grid,” he has led projects that have produced software systems and scientific computing environments used by tens of thousands of researchers worldwide. He has published hundreds of scientific papers and six books on these and related topics. Ian is a Professor of Computer Science at the University of Chicago, a Distinguished Fellow at Argonne National Laboratory, and Director of the Computation Institute. He is also a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the Association for Computing Machinery, and the British Computer Society. His many awards include the British Computer Society’s Lovelace Medal, honorary doctorates from the University of Canterbury, New Zealand, and CINVESTAV, Mexico, and the IEEE Tsutomu Kanai award. Ian has a Bachelor of Science (Hons I) from the University of Canterbury and a Doctor of Philosophy from Imperial College, UK, both in computer science.