President Bush has selected 91探花computer scientist Ed Lazowska as co-chair of the President鈥檚 Information Technology Advisory Committee, the White House announced recently.
Lazowska, the Bill & Melinda Gates Chair in the Department of Computer Science & Engineering, will serve a two-year term on the committee, which provides the president, Congress and other federal agencies with advice on maintaining U.S. leadership in advanced information technologies.
鈥淐ontinued leadership in information technology is vital to the nation,鈥� Lazowska said. 鈥淧ITAC has played an important role in guiding federal policy in this arena, and I鈥檓 delighted to have been appointed to the committee.鈥�
PITAC was chartered by Congress under the High-Performance Computing Act of 1991 and the Next Generation Internet Act of 1998. The committee has provided several reports to the president鈥檚 office since its inception. In February PITAC published reports on access to knowledge, health care advances through information technology, and information technology鈥檚 impact on education.
Lazowska follows Sherrilynne Fuller, the director of the UW鈥檚 Health Sciences Libraries and Information Center, who formerly served on the committee. Fuller was one of the original members of PITAC, appointed in 1997.
Lazowska is a member of the National Academy of Engineering and a fellow of the Association for Computing Machinery, the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He has been a member of the 91探花faculty since 1977. In 1998, he was given the 91探花Outstanding Public Service Award. He chaired the 91探花Department of Computer Science & Engineering in the College of Engineering from 1993-2001, and in 2000 was named the Bill & Melinda Gates Chair.
More information on PITAC is available online at .