Carl Kesselman
The collaborative work of Carl Kesselman, director of Information Sciences Institute’s Center for Grid Technologies, has been singled out as transformative by M.I.T.’s influential monthly, Technology Review.
The magazine’s February 2003 issue, on newsstands Jan. 21, features 10 emerging technologies that will change the world by dramatically affecting the way lives are led and business is conducted, according to Technology Review editor Robert Buderi.For each technology, the magazine profiled one researcher or research team whose work exemplifies the fieldÌs possibilities.
Instead of focusing on gadgets and gizmos, Buderi said, “We searched university and corporate labs around the world to find new areas of technology that promise to transform industries such as computing, medicine, manufacturing, transportation and energy.”
The magazine recognized Kesselman and his longtime collaborator, Ian Foster of Argonne National Laboratory, for their work on the Globus Project, which creates open-source Grid software, called “middleware,” for science, engineering, business and other collaborative situations.
Grid Computing is the high-speed networking equivalent to the electric power grid, providing access to both raw computer power and special data or instrument resources on demand, in much the way a power grid provides electricity.
Grid Computing “middleware” like Globus’ is seen as crucial for optimal use of the ultra-high bandwidth Internet2 network, and the even faster follow-on linkages now being created.
The Technology Review honor is the latest in a string for the researchers, who were singled out in the Sept. 16, 2002 Internet edition of Newsweek as “two of the founding fathers of the grid.”
Kesselman and Foster will go to London in May to receive Lovelace Medals from the British Computer Society. The award honors individuals who have made contributions of major significance in the advancement of information systems,
In winter 2002, R&D Magazine named the Globus Toolkit the “Most Promising New Technology” developed that year, in addition to including it among its R&D 100 best inventions of the year.
Technology Review’s Buderi underscored the significance of research by Kesselman and Foster.
“Especially with the world increasingly interconnected, global economic and social heath and security are profoundly dependent on a never-ending stream of new technologies,” said Buderi.
“The innovations — and innovators — profiled in our report are pointing the way to a future of new computing architectures, alternative energy sources, safer and more effective drugs, improved forms of transportation and other underpinnings of a vibrant economy and better world,” he said.
In addition to grid computing, other technologies pinpointed to change the future include injectable tissue engineering, molecular imaging, ad hoc wireless networks, software verification, quantum communications, nanoimprinting and nanosolar energy.
Published on January 8th, 2003
Last updated on August 10th, 2021
