7 Professional Experience 1998 - Present • Professor in the School of Information and in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science of the College of Engineering, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. Teaching and research in the area of distributed knowledge environments (including collaboratories and digital libraries) including the impact on research teams and the future of higher education. 2003 - Present • Senior Advisor to the U. S. National Science Foundation. Working across the Foundation to help further develop programs in the creation, provision and frontier application of cyberinfrastructure. Founding Director of the Alliance for Community Technology (ACT). ACT is a strategic alliance of research, education, and service, backed by major foundations to link academia, social investors, and community-based organizations for research and development to provide broader opportunity for people to participate in "digital opportunity." See www.communitytechnology.org. Digital library work includes creating a test-bed digital library federation with the 30 Native American tribal colleges. He also hosted an NSF-sponsored workshop to explore extensions of this work to other indigenous cultures. We are also doing experiments in the use of global cross-cultural collaboratories to support graduate student seminars as well as global-product engineering design courses. Other sites include South Africa, England, the Netherlands, Poland and Korea. Serving on several National Academy of Sciences and Engineering panels concerning the future of the research university in the digital age, scholarship in the digital age, scholarly communication in the digital age, and information technology and K-12. Chair of the NSF Blue Ribbon Panel on Cyberinfrastructure. Final report has been issued and is serving as a catalyst for a broad array of responses and initiatives across the NSF and other national and international agencies. Project Director for NSF sponsored Space Physics and Aeronomy Research Collaboratory (SPARC) funded under the Knowledge and Distributed Intelligence Initiative (KDI). This is a "flagship" collaboratory project sponsored by the National Science Foundation and received a Smithsonian award for one of the most significant uses of the Internet to support scientific research. Co-PI on NSF ITR award on the Science of Collaboratories – a multi-disciplinary team focusing on synthesizing and articulating findings from a decade of experimental research on collaboratories at the University of Michigan and elsewhere. Serving as consultant to industry, philanthropy, academia, and the National Science Foundation. 1992  - 1998 Founding Dean, School of Information (www.si.umich.edu). In 1992 Atkins became Dean of the School of Information and Library Studies with the explicit mandate to transform it into a new school with a broader, visionary mission. In 1994 the School was re-chartered by the Regents as the School of Information with initial specializations in human-computer interaction; information economics, management, and policy; knowledge management; and information and library services. He established an excellent multi-disciplinary faculty with backgrounds in computer and information science, psychology, economics, sociology, political science, history, business, law, and others. He raised over $20M in external support within a five year period. SI is a catalysis for a broad array of multi-disciplinary activities related to future information technology systems and organizational forms. Major sponsorships for these initiatives are coming from foundations, industry, and government including the W. K. Kellogg Foundation, the Mellon Foundation, the Carnegie Foundation, Intel, Ford Motor Company, Steelcase, Lucent, Sun Microsystems, DARPA, NIH, and the National Science Foundation. The UM School of Information as been instrumental in launching the “I-School” movement at a growing number of other universities. Director and Co-PI of NSF/DARPA/NASA Digital Library Research Initiative.  This was a partnership between the federal government, the University, and the private sector.  We conducted multi-disciplinary basic research, built a digital library testbed based upon distributed intelligent agent technology and markets, and evaluated it in use in schools and libraries.  $4M plus $4M co-investment from the University, industry, and foundations over 4 years. Director and Co-PI of a multi-disciplinary, experimental research project to create and evaluate an advanced information systems to support remote collaboration in space science research. This Upper Atmospheric Research Collaboratory (UARC) Project was sponsored by the National Science Foundation for 5 years at a level of $4M.  Renewed September 1998 for three more years under the broader name of Space Physics and Aeronomy Research Collaboratory (SPARC). Serving on numerous national committees of the NSF, AAU, ARL, Library of Congress, Council of Library resources, Council on Preservation and Access to help define the vision and plan of action to achieve the national digital library. August 1992 - July 1992 Co-leader in establishing a multi-disciplinary collaboration systems research group. Chaired the University task force on high-performance computing and visualization.  Established a seminar course in computer-integrated digital media. July 1991 - August 1992 Sabbatical leave spent at several industrial and university research laboratories.  Participated in research activities in integrated digital video-computing systems with application to advanced information systems, especially those that support distributed group work. January 1989 - July 1991 Interim Dean, College of Engineering, The University of Michigan. Continued path of rebuilding faculty and rapid growth in sponsored research, and physical plant. UM College of Engineering is now ranked in top five due in large part to changes made in the 1980s. Secured major private funding for a new building for the Aerospace Department. Personally supported the UM student Sunrunner team which designed, built, raced, and won the first national solar race car competition. October 1981 - January 1989 Associate Dean for Research and Graduate Studies, College of Engineering, The University of Michigan.  Member of administrative core and participated in all aspects of College administration.  Specific responsibilities included stimulating large-scale research programs, building industrial research partnerships, assisting faculty with research related issues, and responsibility for building the College distributed computing environment, CAEN that became a national model. Working with James Duderstadt (now President Emeritus, University of Michigan) and Charles Vest (President of MIT) we presided over a rapid rejuvenation of the College including the hiring of 200 faculty in 5 years made necessary by a demographic bulge of retirements and resignations. June 1981  - Present Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, The University of Michigan.  Research and teaching in distributed computer architecture, digital libraries and collaboration technology. Pursued a multi-disciplinary approach including coupling of technical and social/behavioral constraints. September 1975 - June 1981 Associate Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering, The University of Michigan. Specialized in high-performance computing architecture and computer-aided design of application specific systems. Validated work through building eight different experimental machines including special high-performance processors for advanced tomography systems with the Mayo Clinic and others for remote-sensing and machine vision with the Environmental research Institute of Michigan (ERIM). July 1971 - September 1975 Assistant Professor of Computer Engineering, The University of Michigan. Specialized in high-performance computing architecture with special emphasis of parallel structures and high-speed computer arithmetic based upon higher-radix and redundant encodings. Some of my work in this area in higher-radix division is used in commercial machines, including the Intel Pentium series. February 1971 - June 1972 Assistant Professor of Computer Science, Bucknell University, Lewisburg, Pennsylvania.   October 1970 - February 1971 Electronic Engineer, U.S.  Naval Ordnance Laboratory, White Oak, Silver Spring, Maryland.  Part-time: Assistant Professor, Department of Electrical Engineering, University of Maryland. Taught switching theory. July 1970 - October 1970 Captain, U.S. Army Reserve.  On Active Duty for Training.  Attended Signal Officer Basic Course, Ft. Gordon Georgia. September 1965 - June 1970 (except summer 1967) Graduate student and half-time research assistant, Department of Computer Science, University of Illinois.  Designed high-speed arithmetic units for ILLIAC III Pattern Recognition Computer.  Conducted research in the area of computer arithmetic.  Assisted in teaching introductory course in computer design and advanced course in computer arithmetic. Served as consultant to Illiac 4 – early highly parallel array machine. My thesis research is the basis for the division algorithm in most all modern microprocessor chips. Summer 1967 Electronic Engineer, U.S. Naval Ordnance Laboratory.  Developed data on digital graphics equipment. Summer 1965 • Director, Computer Center, Bucknell University.  Responsible for general administration for the center.  Instructor in programming for NSF sponsored High School Teacher Program. September 1962 - May 1965 • Student and part-time computer center employee, Bucknell University.  Designed and constructed an on-line digital clock for the IBM 1620. Summers 1963 and 1964 • Electrical Engineering Aid, U.S. Naval Ordnance Laboratory.  Assisted in trouble-shooting digital data acquisition system and in the development of data reduction programs. Summer 1962 • Engineering Aid, District of Columbia Highway Department.  Assisted in development of computer model of traffic flow in D.C. area.