Alan Blatecky became the interim director of the Renaissance Computing Institute on Dec. 3, 2007. He had served as RENCI deputy director since 2004 and helped guide the institute through its initial startup phase and through a period of growth and development that included the hiring of more than 80 professional staff and the opening of six RENCI sites across North Carolina. 

Blatecky brings to RENCI more than 25 years of experience in high performance computing, networking and communications. Before coming to RENCI, he was the executive director of the San Diego Supercomputer Center, one of the National Science Foundation's original supercomputing centers, and directed the National Science Foundation's Middleware Initiative, an effort to develop the underlying software foundation needed for a nationwide cyberinfrastructure to support research, from 2001 to 2003.

Blatecky has a long history working with the North Carolina research, education and business communities. He was executive director of the North Carolina Networking Initiative from 1998 to 2001 and a vice president at the Microelectronics Center of North Carolina (now MCNC) for 11 years, where he helped establish and develop the North Carolina Research and Education Network (NCREN), one of the nation’s most advanced statewide research networks. Other projects that were launched through MCNC during his tenure include the North Carolina Supercomputing Center, the North Carolina Information Highway, the North Carolina GigaPop, VISTAnet (one of the five national Gigabit test beds), the North Carolina Networking Initiative, and the Internet2 Technology Evaluation Center.

Blatecky serves on a variety of national and international advisory boards that are shaping the research landscape and developing the infrastructure to support research, education and collaborative problem solving. These include the Program Management Board for Enabling Grids for E-Science in Europe, the Long Term Ecological Research program, The National Biomedical Computation Resource Advisory Board, SURAgrid, the Biomedical Informatics Research Network and the International Research Network Connections program.

Blatecky holds four masters degrees including degrees from Princeton University and degrees from Duke University.

RENCI Board of Directors
Members of the RENCI Board of Directors come from its three founding institutions. The board reviews strategic directions for the institute and provides leadership and assistance in accomplishing its goals.

Bernadette Gray-Little, UNC Chapel Hill
Dr. Gray-Little has been a faculty member and administrator at UNC-Chapel Hill for more than 35 years and became the campus’ executive vice chancellor and provost in 2006. She is responsible to the chancellor for the quality of the university's academic and research programs as well as the formulation and implementation of its educational policies. Previously she was dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, the largest academic unit at the university. Dr. Gray-Little is a professor of psychology and a fellow of the American Psychological Association.

Peter Lange, Duke
Dr. Lange has been provost at Duke University since 1999 and is responsible to the president for all aspects of the university’s teaching and research mission. Dr. Lange is a professor of political science whose research focuses on comparative politics and political economy. His most recent work is a collaborative project on the effects of globalization on perceptions of economic risk among citizens in democratic settings and the ways such perceptions are translated into national policies to secure citizens against such risks.

Larry Nielson, NC State
Dr. Nielsen is provost and executive vice chancellor for academic affairs at NC State University. Previously he was the university’s dean of the College of Natural Resources. His scholarly interests focus on sustainable resource management, and he has authored or edited more than 100 publications on natural resource management. Dr. Nielson is a Fellow of the American Institute of Fisheries Research Biologists and an Honorary Member of the American Fisheries Society.

Tony Waldrop, UNC Chapel Hill
Dr. Waldrop is vice chancellor for research and economic development at UNC Chapel Hill. His primary responsibility is to support and encourage the university's research mission and the graduate programs that sustain it and to foster relationships between UNC, corporations, and funding agencies that encourage economic development in North Carolina. Vice Chancellor Waldrop also is a professor of cell and molecular physiology who has published more than 100 peer-reviewed journal articles and book chapters. 

James N. Siedow, Duke
Dr. Siedow serves as vice provost for research at Duke and leads and supports the university’s research efforts. Dr. Siedow is a plant biologist and a professor of botany and biology. He has held numerous positions, including president, in the American Society of Plant Biologists and is a member of the editorial boards of the Journal of Biological Chemistry, Current Opinion in Plant Biology and Genome Biology.

John G. Gilligan, NC State
Dr. Gilligan has been an NCSU faculty member since 1983 and was named vice chancellor for research and graduate studies in 2002. He oversees state, federal, industry and foundation-sponsored research programs valued at nearly $400 million per year. A professor of nuclear engineering, he has mentored more than 45 graduate students, authored more than 100 peer-reviewed publications and is personally responsible for more than $4 million in external research funding.

Daniel A. Reed is director of scalable computing and multicore at Microsoft Research. He founded the Renaissance Computing Institute in 2004 and served as its director until December 2007. Reed also was Chancellor's Eminent Professor and served as senior adviser for strategy and innovation to UNC-Chapel Hill Chancellor James Moeser. He served as CIO and Vice Chancellor for Information Technology Services at UNC-Chapel Hill from January 2004 through April 2007.

Reed came to North Carolina from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where he led the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) and the University of Illinois computer science department during a time when more than $100 million in public and private funds were invested in the campus to create an information technology quadrangle. A well known leader in the high performance computing and communications community, he is a member of the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST) and the current chair of the Board of Directors of the Computing Research Association (CRA). He served on President Bush's Information Technology Advisory Committee, where he chaired the computational science subcommittee. Reed continues to work with RENCI as a member of its external advisory committee.