Fran Berman

Dr. Francine “Fran” Berman is an HPC luminary who is a leader in digital data preservation and cyberinfrastructure. Berman is the former director of the San Diego Supercomputer Center, as well as the NSF’s National Partnership for Advanced Computational Infrastructure (NPACI). 

Berman told HPCwire she has always been focused on HPC users and what HPC and cyberinfrastructure environments could do to advance their work, having embraced data infrastructure “before it was popular.” As head of SDSC, she focused on creating a comprehensive environment for users with data-intensive applications that included supercomputers tuned for data-intensive computations, data stewardship and preservation environments, software tools and environments for data analysis, visualization and manipulation, and critical human expertise in these technologies. 

“I’m proud of SDSC’s relationship with the UCSD Libraries and the work that University Librarian Brian Schottlaender and I did with the Library of Congress on the Chronopolis preservation grid,” she said. Berman has been designated a “Digital Preservation Pioneer” by the Library of Congress. 

Berman has played a pivotal role in advancing women in STEM, particularly in computer science, through national initiatives and leadership positions such as co-chairing the Computing Research Association’s Committee on the Status of Women. She is a former Chair of the Anita Borg Institute’s board of trustees and has been a keynote speaker at the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing. 

Berman has received many accolades for her achievements, including the inaugural ACM/IEEE Ken Kennedy Award. She has also received the Paul Evans Peter Award (given by CNI, ARL and Educause) and the NCWIT Pioneer in Tech Award. Berman is an elected member of the AAAS and the National Academy of Public Administration and was appointed by President Obama as a member of the National Council on the Humanities. 

Berman currently leads the campus-wide Public Interest Technology Initiative at UMass Amherst where she is creating a working model for rebooting higher education to equip students, professionals, and citizens with the skills to responsibly manage and utilize technology while promoting public interest. She is co-editor of “Grid Computing: Making the Global Infrastructure a Reality” with Tony Hey and Geoffrey Fox. She is currently writing a book on Public Interest Technology. 

“These days I engage with the HPC community and the broader community of technologists through my efforts to build Public Interest Technology as a field, through education, and as a foundation for professional work in a tech-driven world,” Berman told HPCwire. “Through speaking, writing, mentoring, and working with collaborators and teams, it is important to me to both develop and empower the next generation of students, professionals, and citizens who can use technology in a socially responsible way to promote the public good and human well-being.”