Presented by Dr. Damian Clarke • Chief Information Officer, Alabama A&M University
It is clear that society is moving into the digital age, yet much of the infrastructure required to build the economic base capable of delivering goods and services to communities in Alabama does not exist. The quality and effectiveness of the services delivered by utilities, educational, governmental, health, safety, and law enforcement organizations are increasingly dependent on wide-area network connections and the internet services they enable. Recognizing the limitations of currently provided state-wide network services, the consortium of the CIO's of 14 public universities have joined in discussions and planning activities to study holistic alternatives for the establishment and operation of an advanced network backbone capable of reaching most, or all, of the state offices, campuses, and other facilities across Alabama.
Presented by: Dr. Damian Clarke / Chief Information Officer, Alabama A&M University
Dr. Damian Clarke is the Chief Information Officer (CIO) and Computer Science Faculty at Alabama Agriculture and Mechanical University (AAMU). He received his Ph.D. in Computer Science from the University of Miami and a Masters in Computer Science from George Washington University. His undergraduate is in Mathematics and Computer Science from South Carolina State University. As CIO, he oversees the management of the university's network and communications infrastructure, Enterprise Resource Planning system (BANNER), Academic Information Technology, and other Information Technology (IT) services that support all levels of research, learning, and teaching. Dr. Clarke serves as the Chair of the Alabama Higher Education CIO (HE-CIO) Council. The HE-CIO council's purpose is to create synergy among Alabama's universities and research centers, in partnership with state offices by collectively promoting improved service delivery and economic advantages. Dr. Clarke is a founding member of the Minority Serving – Cyberinfrastructure Consortium (MS-CC), a transformational partnership to advance cyberinfrastructure (CI) capabilities on HBCU, HSI, TCU, and MSI campuses, with data, research computing, teaching, collaboration, and capacity-building connections among institutions. MS-CC goal is to learn and grow as a consortium, dedicated to lifting all participating institutions in advancing research and education across diverse fields, disciplines, and communities as full contributors in the global research and education community. Before becoming CIO at AAMU, Damian was the CIO and Computer Science faculty at South Carolina State University (SCSU). Dr. Clarke was the original PI for a two year $500K National Science Foundation grant, "CC* Networking Infrastructure: Bulldog Connectivity and Research." SCSU was the first of two HBCUs to receive the CC* Networking Infrastructure award.
