INTERCONNECTS

Vijay Samalam, a well-known expert in data communications with both theoretical and practical expertise, has joined the San Diego Supercomputer Center as the new program director for networking. "Vijay brings a wealth of vision, experience, and leadership to SDSC," said Fran Berman, SDSC director. "We feel exceptionally fortunate to have found the ideal person to occupy this position. Advanced networks are key to implementing modern computer systems -- especially national grids such as the NPACI Grid and the TeraGrid -- and we look forward to working with him to build a foundation for 21st Century cyberinfrastructure at SDSC and throughout the science and technology community." Samalam has more than two decades of direct experience in the networking industry. Most recently he was vice-president for architecture and chief technology officer for Lucent Technologies' core switching division in Westford, Massachusetts, where he oversaw the development of Lucent's next generation ATM (asynchronous transfer mode) optical network and MPLS/IP (multi-protocol label switching/Internet Protocol) core switching products. He had worked for more than a dozen years with GTE Laboratories, where he participated in various projects involving broadband switching and ATM and IP services. Prior to entering the data communications industry, Samalam was an assistant professor of physics at the University of Florida, where his main interest was solid-state physics. He has maintained his expertise in the sometimes exclusive worlds of theory and application. In 1997 Samalam was awarded IEEE Fred W. Ellersick Prize for the most outstanding paper published in the journal IEEE Communications. "I am delighted to have the opportunity to work with SDSC's outstanding teams of network engineers and researchers," Samalam said. "Researchers here are doing pioneering studies of the behavior and topologies of the Internet and advanced high-speed networks. The engineers are implementing new data communications technologies for national research networks and for even more advanced efforts such as the TeraGrid and other cyberinfrastructure projects. The synergy of these people and these projects makes SDSC the place to be for people who want to turn visions of advanced networking into reality." Samalam joins a strong senior management team to help direct SDSC's programs in Integrative Biosciences, High-End Computing, Grid and Cluster Computing, Integrative Computational Sciences, Data and Knowledge Systems, and Networking.