James Bottum Lecture

“Investing for Cyber-Enabled Discovery & Innovation”

James Bottum
Chief Information Officer
Vice Provost for Computing and Information Technology
Clemson University

Monday, September 17, 2007
1:30-2:30 p.m.
330 Student Union
NORTH CAMPUS

James R. "Jim" Bottum is the Chief Information Officer and Vice Provost for Computing and Information Technology at Clemson University. At Clemson University, he leads efforts focusing on high performance computing and communication, collaborating with State and National governmental entities.

Prior to coming to Clemson, Bottum became the first CIO and VP for Computing at Purdue, where he was responsible for planning and coordinating all computing and information systems across the university. He had direct oversight of the university's central IT organization, Information Technology at Purdue, known as ITaP (pronounced eye-TAP). Under Bottum's leadership, ITaP was recognized nationally for innovative uses of information technology to improve teaching and learning, including classroom response systems, technology classroom sites and podcasting as a centralized service. In the fall of 2005, these innovative approaches were recognized by "Newsweek" and with a cover story in the "Chronicle of Higher Education."

Bottum has also had experience as executive director for the National Center for Supercomputing Applications at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He is a graduate of Florida State University and attended law school at the State University of New York at Buffalo.

Abstract: The talk explores some strategies, challenges and rewards of investing in and deploying cyberinfrastructure in a variety of environments. Drawing on experiences at a Federal agency, a national center and at two state universities, the talk shows how strategic investments in cyberinfrastructure can impact learning, discovery and economic development when an organization decides to make technology a strategic part of its institutional direction.