Fuchs to join Mellon Foundation
Ira Fuchs, vice president for computing and information
technology, has been appointed to the newly created position
of vice president for research in information technology at
the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, effective July 1. He will
lead research initiatives intended to develop new ways in
which information technologies, and particularly digital
technologies, can benefit scholarship and research, teaching
and learning.
Fuchs has served for 15 years as Princeton's vice
president for computing and information technology, and he
will continue to spend roughly one day a week
advising the senior leader ship of the University in
its use of digital technologies.
In 1981 Fuchs was the cofounder of Bitnet, which
at the time was the world's largest academic computing
network and a precursor to the Internet. Since 1989,
he has been president of the Corporation for Research and
Educational Networking, an organization that fosters
the use of networking technology in higher education.
"This is a very significant initiative by the Mellon
Foundation and an exceptional opportunity for Ira to build
on the leadership he has been providing for more than 20
years," said President Shapiro. "At the same time, I am very
pleased that Ira will also continue to be a senior
technology adviser to me, and I look forward to continuing
collaboration between Princeton and the foundation in this
field."
Fuchs's areas of activity will include investigating
technical approaches to archiving and providing access to
scholarly resources; design and creation of an archive
intended to assemble and provide access to high quality art
images in conjunction with text and associated scholarly
materials; and other foundation-sponsored projects in the
areas of scholarly communication, further development of
digital libraries and cost-effective uses of technology in
teaching, including online and distance learning.
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