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Gregory Peterson headshot

Peterson Named NSF Program Director

Gregory Peterson, a professor in the Min H. Kao Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS), has been named a program director at the National Science Foundation (NSF).

Peterson began his role in Washington, D.C., in January and could stay for as long as four years. He will continue to work as a professor within the Tickle College of Engineering throughout that time.

Peterson is working in the Computers Research Cluster (CSR) of the Computer and Information Science and Engineering Division of Computer and Networks Systems (CISE/CNS) at NSF. The CISE/CNS funds research that focuses on advancing the understanding and development of computer and network systems and their role in solving complex scientific, engineering, and societal problems.

The division supports research and education in:

  • Computer systems and networks.
  • Hardware and software systems.
  • Future-generation computing and communication systems.
  • CISE infrastructure.
  • Cyber-physical systems.
  • Secure and trustworthy cyberspace.
  • CISE education and workforce development.

“It’s nice to be able to help serve the community in this role,” Peterson said. “That’s really what we’re trying to do, help serve the community and help to steer where we invest our federal research dollars to help continue to advance computing, and computing systems in particular.”

Peterson was the program director of the data science and engineering graduate program for the UT-Oak Ridge Innovation Institute’s Bredesen Center of Interdisciplinary Research and Graduate Education. He served a five-year term as the department head for EECS from 2018–23. Since 2012, Peterson has served as the director of the National Institute for Computational Sciences, UT’s supercomputing center.

Peterson received his bachelor’s, master’s, and doctoral degrees in electrical engineering and bachelor’s and master’s degrees in computer science from Washington University, St. Louis.

Prior to joining UT in 2000, Peterson served as a captain at the Air Force Research Lab. His research interests include parallel processing, computational and data science, electronic design automation, performance evaluation, and high-performance reconfigurable computing.

Contact

Rhiannon Potkey (865-974-0683, rpotkey@utk.edu)