Ian Foster (computer scientist)

{{Infobox scientist

|name = Ian Foster

|image =

|caption =

|birth_date = {{birth date and age|1959|1|1|df=y}}

|birth_place = Wellington, New Zealand

|death_date =

|death_place =

|nationality = New Zealand

|field = {{Plainlist|

Computer Science
Grid computing{{cite journal|doi=10.1177/109434200101500302|title=The Anatomy of the Grid: Enabling Scalable Virtual Organizations|journal=International Journal of High Performance Computing Applications|volume=15|issue=3|pages=200–222|year=2001|author=Foster, I.|arxiv=cs/0103025|bibcode=2001cs........3025F|s2cid=28969310}}}}

|known_for = {{Plainlist|

|work_institution = {{Plainlist|

|alma_mater = {{Plainlist|

University of Canterbury
Imperial College London (PhD)}}

|doctoral_advisor = Keith Clark

|doctoral_students =

|thesis_title = Parlog as a systems programming language

|thesis_year = 1988

|thesis_url = https://archive.org/details/parlogasasystemp037550mbp

|prizes = {{Plainlist|

|website = {{Plainlist|

{{URL|http://ianfoster.typepad.com}}
{{URL|https://www.cs.uchicago.edu/directory/ian-foster}}
{{URL|http://labs.globus.org}}

}}

Ian Tremere Foster (born 1 January 1959) is a New Zealand-American computer scientist. He is a distinguished fellow, senior scientist, and director of the Data Science and Learning division at Argonne National Laboratory, and a professor in the department of computer science at the University of Chicago.{{cite journal|doi=10.1177/109434209701100205|title=Globus: A Metacomputing Infrastructure Toolkit|journal=International Journal of High Performance Computing Applications|volume=11|issue=2|pages=115|year=1997|author1=Foster, I.|author2=Kesselman, C.|citeseerx=10.1.1.48.6898|s2cid=438757}}{{cite journal|doi=10.1002/cpe.3101|title=Emerging Computational Methods for the Life Sciences Workshop 2012|journal=Concurrency and Computation: Practice and Experience|volume=26|issue=6|pages=1231|year=2014|author1=Qiu, J.|author2=Foster, I.|author3=Goble, C.|s2cid=26141575|authorlink3=Carole Goble|doi-access=}}

Education and career

Foster was born in Wellington, New Zealand, in 1959. He was educated at Wellington College and the University of Canterbury, followed by the Department of Computing, Imperial College London.

From 2006 to 2016, he was director of the Computation Institute (CI), a joint project between the University of Chicago, and Argonne National Laboratory.{{cite web|title=Ian Foster appointed to third term as director of Computation Institute|url=https://news.uchicago.edu/story/ian-foster-appointed-third-term-director-computation-institute|date=24 August 2012|publisher=University of Chicago|access-date=10 January 2020}}

CI brings together computational scientists and discipline leaders to work on projects with computation as a key component.

He is currently Director of the Data Science and Learning Division at Argonne National Laboratory, a unit established to tackle advanced scientific problems where data analysis and artificial intelligence can provide critical insights and accelerate discovery.

Honors

Foster's honours include the Gordon Bell Prize for high-performance computing (2001),{{cite web|url=https://www.mcs.anl.gov/~pieper/SUCCESS/gordon01.html|title=Researchers Win Gordon Bell Prize for 2001|publisher=Argonne National Laboratory|access-date=10 January 2020}} the Lovelace Medal of the British Computer Society (2002),{{cite news|url=http://www-news.uchicago.edu/releases/02/021021.lovelace.shtml|title=Ian Foster to receive 2002 Lovelace Medal from British Computer Society|publisher=University of Chicago|date=21 October 2002|access-date=10 January 2020}} an honorary Doctor of Science from the University of Canterbury in 2005,{{cite web |title=Hon doc – Professor Ian Foster |url= https://www.canterbury.ac.nz/alumni/our-alumni/uc-hon-docs/ian-foster/ |publisher=University of Canterbury |access-date=18 May 2021}} the IEEE Tsutomu Kanai Award (2011),{{cite web|url=https://www.computer.org/profiles/ian-foster|title=Ian T. Foster|date=8 June 2018 |publisher=IEEE Computer Society|access-date=10 January 2020}} the IEEE Computer Society Charles Babbage Award,{{cite news|date=7 March 2019|access-date=10 January 2020|url= https://www.computer.org/press-room/2019-news/2019-charles-babbage-award-ian-foster|title=Ian Foster Named Recipient of 2019 IEEE Computer Society Charles Babbage Award|publisher=IEEE Computer Society}} (with Carl Kesselman) the IEEE Computer Society Harry H Goode Memorial Award (2020),{{cite news|url=https://www.computer.org/press-room/2020-news/foster-and-kesselman-to-receive-2020-ieee-cs-society-goode-memorial-award|title=Dr. Ian Foster and Dr. Carl Kesselman to Receive 2020 IEEE Computer Society Harry H. Goode Memorial Award|publisher=IEEE Computer Society|date=3 March 2020|access-date=16 March 2021}} the IEEE Internet Award (2023),{{efn|Alongside Carl Kesselman; the citation reads: "For contributions to the design, deployment, and application of practical Internet-scale global computing platforms.{{cite web |title=IEEE Internet Award |url=https://www.ieee.org/content/dam/ieee-org/ieee/web/org/about/awards/recipients/internet-rl.pdf |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211216193827/https://www.ieee.org/content/dam/ieee-org/ieee/web/org/about/awards/recipients/internet-rl.pdf |url-status=dead |archive-date=16 December 2021 |publisher=Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers |access-date=29 December 2022}}}} and the ACM-IEEE CS Ken Kennedy Award (2022).{{cite web|url=https://awards.acm.org/kennedy|title=Ian Foster Recognized with ACM-IEEE CS Ken Kennedy Award}} He was elected Fellow of the British Computer Society in 2001, Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 2003,{{cite news|url=http://chronicle.uchicago.edu/031106/aaas.shtml|author=Steve Koppes|title=Nine on faculty elected 2003 AAAS fellows|work=University of Chicago Chronicle|volume=78|issue=4|date=6 November 2003}} and in 2009, a Fellow of the Association for Computing Machinery,{{cite web|url=https://www.anl.gov/mcs/article/argonnes-ian-foster-named-fellow-of-the-association-for-computing-machinery|title=Argonne's Ian Foster named Fellow of the Association for Computing Machinery|publisher=Argonne National Laboratory|date=1 December 2009|access-date=10 January 2020}} who named him the inaugural recipient of the high-performance parallel and distributed computing (HPDC) achievement award in 2012.{{cite web|title=Achievement Award|work=HPDC 2012 web site|url=http://www.hpdc.org/2012/program/keynote-speakers/#achievement-award-talk|access-date=10 January 2020}}{{cite web|title=20 years of grid computing|author=Ian Foster|work=HPDC 2012 award talk|date=22 June 2012|url=http://www.hpdc.org/2012/site/files/HPDC2012-Foster.pdf|access-date=10 January 2020}} In 2017, he was recognised with the Euro-Par Achievement Award.{{cite web|title=The Euro-Par Achievement Award|url=https://2020.euro-par.org/?q=node/7|access-date=10 January 2020}}

Research

Foster's research focuses on the acceleration of discovery in a network using distributed computing. With Carl Kesselman and Steve Tuecke, Foster coined the term grid computing: techniques for data-intensive, multi-institution collaboration that paved the way for cloud computing. Methods and software developed under his leadership advanced discovery in areas as high energy physics, environmental science, and biomedicine.

For example, grid computing was credited by CERN director Rolf-Dieter Heuer as one of the elements essential for the 2012 discovery of the Higgs boson.{{cite web|title=Strong hints of the Higgs – live from CERN|work=Gridcast blog|date=4 July 2012|url=http://gridtalk-project.blogspot.com/2012/07/strong-hints-of-higgs-live-from-cern.html|access-date=10 January 2020}}

His research has also resulted in the development of techniques, tools and algorithms for high-performance distributed computing and parallel computing. His Globus Toolkit project encouraged collaborative computing for engineering, business and other fields. In March 2004, Foster co-founded Univa Corporation to commercialize the technology.{{Cite web|title=Form D: Notice of Sale of Securities|publisher=US Securities and Exchange Commission|date=25 August 2005|url=https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/vprr/0506/05064897.pdf|access-date=10 January 2020}}

Publications

Strand: New Concepts for Parallel Programming. Prentice Hall, 1990.
[http://www.mcs.anl.gov/~itf/dbpp/ Designing and Building Parallel Programs]. Addison-Wesley, 1994.
The Grid: Blueprint for a New Computing Infrastructure. Morgan Kaufmann, 1998.
The Sourcebook of Parallel Computing. Morgan Kaufmann, 2003.
The Grid 2, Second Edition: Blueprint for a New Computing Infrastructure. Elsevier, 2004.
[http://www.bigdatasocialscience.com Big Data and Social Science]. CRC Press, 2016.
[https://cloud4scieng.org Cloud Computing for Science and Engineering]. MIT Press, November 2017.