Stan Ahalt, director of the Renaissance Computing Institute (RENCI), has been elected to a second term as chair of the Coalition for Academic Scientific Computation (CASC).

Voting for the CASC leadership took place in October and the election results were announced Nov. 18 at SC09, the annual international conference of high performance computing, networking, data and analysis.

CASC is an educational nonprofit organization with 58 member institutions. Members include national high performance computing centers, government laboratories and university-based computing centers. CASC advocates using the most advanced computing technology to accelerate scientific discovery for national competitiveness, global security, and economic success. It also works to develop a diverse and well-prepared 21st-century workforce.

Ahalt, who became RENCI director in September, was first elected CASC chair a year ago and took the leadership role in January 2009, while serving as executive director of the Ohio Supercomputer Center. Joining Ahalt in the CASC leadership roles are Vice Chair Amy Apon, Arkansas High Performance Computing Center; Secretary Vijay Argawala, Pennslyvania State University; and Treasurer Dan Katz, University of Chicago and Argonne National Laboratory.

CASC was formed 20 years ago and its mission is to:

• Disseminate information about the value of high performance computing and advanced communications technologies.
• Provide an “expert resource” for the Executive Office of the President, the Congress, and government agencies.
• Facilitate information exchange within the academic scientific computation and communication community.

For more information, see www.casc.org.