Francine D. Berman

Photographers: Mark Robert Halper

Director, University of California, San Diego, Supercomputer Center

Most Important Technology of the Last 40 Years:

Parallelism. Parallel technologies, algorithms, and applications are a fundamental part of virtually all modern technology, from computer design to storage to networking to communication.

Most Important Technology for the Coming Decade:

Data software and hardware technologies.

Technology That has Evolved in a Surprising Way:

Cellphones and personal technology. The ability to step outside of our current boundaries via technology will have a fundamental effect on the evolution of society and culture. I don't think Alexander Graham Bell thought about this when he invented the phone.

"We're more dependent than ever before on our computers, on Internet access, on data storage to provide easy, always accessible information. I don't buy a newspaper to look up movie listings any more; I just look them up online. And infrastructure is the key enabler.

"We're grappling with how to push science to the next step and support a stable but evolutionary infrastructure. 'Cyberinfrastructure' is the term people are using to talk about deep integration of a vast array of technological resources like computers, data storage, networks, scientific instruments, visualization devices, sensors. It's not just having these resources available; it's really about a kind of integrating software glue and an integrating human infrastructure that knows how to use these things end to end.

"Data is currently the 'killer app' for technology, and it's increasing at an exponential rate. How do you make this data useful? Huge databases have evolved—and data applications along with them. These new data technologies really provide immense shoulders for us to stand on, in many fields: astronomy, the life sciences, the geological sciences. You can take a variety of related databases and ask some really complex and interesting questions. It's really transforming these fields."