Speakers : James Bottum

James Bottum
VP of IT
Purdue University

James R. Bottum became Purdue University's first Vice President for Information Technology in August of 2001. He is responsible for planning and coordinating all computing and information systems across the University. He heads up the Office of the Vice President for Information Technology that reports jointly to the Provost and the Executive Vice President and Treasurer of Purdue University.

Mr. Bottum was Executive Director for the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. NCSA was established in 1986 as part of the National Science Foundation (NSF) Supercomputer Centers Program and receives support from NSF, the state of Illinois the University of Illinois, and other partners. In 1997, NCSA became the leading-edge site for the National Computational Science Alliance, a partnership of more than 50 research institutions dedicated to prototyping the computing and information infrastructure of the twenty-first century to facilitate the advancement of science and engineering and ensure the pre-eminence of U.S. competitiveness worldwide.

Mr. Bottum started with NCSA in 1986. His responsibilities included overall management of operations at NCSA. Prior to his appointment at NCSA, Mr. Bottum was Associate Director of the Supercomputer Centers Program in the NSF's Office of Advanced Scientific Computing where he played a key role in the establishment of the Foundation's Advanced Scientific Computing Initiative, including the early plans for NSFnet. At NSF, Mr. Bottum was responsible for the oversight of the five NSF-sponsored supercomputer centers. The expertise he gained in this position was useful in facilitating the growth of NCSA.

Mr. Bottum has served on several national panels and committees, including the Coalition of Academic Supercomputing Centers (CASC) and the ACM/IEEE Supercomputing Executive Committee. Prior to his work with NCSA and NSF, Mr. Bottum was involved in oversight of other national research centers, including the National Center for Atmospheric Research and the Kitt Peak and Sac Peak National Observatories.

Mr. Bottum is a graduate of Florida State University and attended law school at the State University of New York at Buffalo.