The Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center named a new director

James Barr von Oehsen has been named director of the Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center (PSC), a joint research center of the University of Pittsburgh and Carnegie Mellon University. He will also hold appointments on the research faculty of Pitt’s departments of electrical and computer engineering and biomedical informatics, as well as Carnegie Mellon’s Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering. He will begin May 1.

A leader in the field of cyberinfrastructure, Von Oehsen comes from Rutgers University, where he served as associate vice president for the Office of Advanced Research Computing. There he provided strategic leadership that advanced the university’s research and scholarly achievements through next-generation computing, networking and data science. He also developed and implemented a cyberinfrastructure strategy, centralizing research computing across the university.

In a letter announcing the appointment, Senior Vice Chancellor for Research Rob A. Rutenbar noted, “His breadth of experience with cyberinfrastructure that supports scientific research will make him an excellent leader to continue and advance PSC’s legacy in high performance computing and Pitt’s commitment to support research computing comprehensively across the full spectrum of scholarly activities, from digital arts and humanities, to STEM, to clinical and health science users.”