Rich Knepper named new director of Cornell’s Center for Advanced Computing

Rich Knepper has been named director of the Cornell University Center for Advanced Computing (CAC). The announcement was made by Emmanuel Giannelis, vice president for research and innovation.

CAC provides research computing services to Cornell faculty in the sciences, engineering, business, arts, and humanities. Knepper will lead the center’s computing and consulting staff that includes systems professionals and PhD-level computational consultants with expertise in astronomy, biology, computer science, informatics, socials sciences, physics, and more.

Knepper has received numerous NSF grants, leads a national cyberinfrastructure resources integration team, and is the author or co-author of more than 50 papers. He earned his Ph.D. in Informatics from Indiana University where he was the manager for campus bridging and research infrastructure.

“I am excited to see Rich serve as the next director of CAC,” said Giannelis. “Rich’s experience as CAC deputy director and national leadership roles in high performance computing make him the perfect choice to lead the center.”

Knepper will officially assume his new job on January 24, 2022. Knepper, who has been deputy director of CAC since 2017, succeeds David Lifka. Lifka, who has led CAC since 2007, will continue to serve as Cornell’s vice president for information technologies and chief information officer.

In addition to high performance computing, Knepper has worked on campus clouds and federations, reproducible and portable scientific workflows, social network analysis, and the ethnography of virtual organizations. He has been involved in the U.S. Cyberinfrastructure community for over 20 years supporting both local university initiatives as well as NSF and NASA-funded projects including FutureGrid, Polar Grid, Operation Ice Bridge, the Aristotle Cloud Federation, and XSEDE.

“I look forward to working closely with Cornell researchers to create cyberinfrastructure solutions that enable the computational science which drives their research agendas and grant proposals,” said Knepper. “CAC will also continue to play an important role in the national research community by advancing the science of computing, implementing new technologies, and developing training that closes the diversity gap.”