A Message from the Vice Chancellor for Research
Dear Colleagues,
Please join me in welcoming Ashok Krishnamurthy, PhD, to his appointment as director of UNC’s Renaissance Computing Institute, better known as RENCI. Krishnamurthy previously served as RENCI’s deputy director and has been engaged in the leadership team that has guided RENCI over the past 10 years. In addition, he has served as interim director of RENCI since last July when previous director Stan Ahalt assumed deanship of the new School of Data Science and Society. Through Krishnamurthy’s excellent leadership, the transition was seamless, and the institute continues to thrive.
Krishnamurthy has decades of experience as both a researcher and an administrator, with special emphasis on forming and advancing interdisciplinary teams. He collaborates with researchers in informatics, health, and social sciences to develop projects and programs that leverage the power of data science and scalable computing to solve challenging problems. He advises students and mentors post-doctoral scholars and junior investigators and is deeply involved in managing and enhancing research partnerships with other institutions and businesses. Krishnamurthy’s research over the years has been funded by the National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health, the Department of Defense, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, and the Department of Energy. He brings cross-cutting and highly technical expertise, deep collaborative ties across Carolina, the region, and the world, and a wonderful leadership style.
The mission of RENCI is to develop and deploy data science cyberinfrastructure that helps researchers in academia, government, and business use data to drive discoveries, make informed decisions, and spur economic development. As director, Krishnamurthy is responsible for all operations that bring that mission to life, including managing five research groups of over 80 researchers and the Advanced Cyberinfrastructure Support Group (ACIS). In addition, he also holds appointments as a research professor in the Department of Computer Science and as co-director for Informatics and Data Science (IDSci) at the North Carolina Translational and Clinical Sciences Institute (NC TraCS).
Krishnamurthy holds a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, and a master’s and PhD in electrical and computer engineering from the University of Florida.
Please join me in welcoming Ashok to this significant role for our University and the Triangle. We are confident that under his leadership, RENCI will continue its trajectory of excellence in the development and deployment of advanced technologies to advance research discoveries and practical innovations.