Reed's Ruminations: The Past, Present, and Future

Reflections on science, technology, and computing — leavened by personal experience

Reed’s Ruminations

Most Recent Posts

  • Merit Review: Investing in People and Ideas
    While I was chair of the National Science Board (NSB), which is the Presidentially appointed body charged with oversight of the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF), we launched a comprehensive review of how NSF selects and competitively awards funding for research proposals.  We did so recognizing that leadership of the United States in Science, Technology,… Read more: Merit Review: Investing in People and Ideas
  • A Canticle for Reason
    N.B. This is an old article, written a decade ago, but shared only informally with a few. In today’s uncertain world, it seems appropriate to share it more widely. The news spread through the community as most things do – a whisper here, a brief allusion there. Everyone seemed to know, but nobody dared talk… Read more: A Canticle for Reason
  • RENCI and the Digital Antique Shop
    In 2004, I moved to North Carolina to found the Renaissance Computing Institute (RENCI). My goal was to bring a new approach to computationally mediated problem solving, one rooted in multidisciplinary teams and focused on important and vexing societal problems – health, environment, society, and economics. In a phrase, to be a catalyst for innovation.… Read more: RENCI and the Digital Antique Shop
  • A 21st Century Student Experience, Looking Back
    N.B. Back in 1999, when I was a computer science professor and department head at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC), I considered all that I knew about technology and research trends in computing, wireless communications, networking, modeling and simulation, and I asked myself, “What could life be like for my typical student in… Read more: A 21st Century Student Experience, Looking Back
  • Courtside at the Digital Revolution
    During the past fifty years, I have been privileged to see the digital revolution courtside, as well as play the game myself.  It’s a journey from physical media – punched cards, paper tape, and typewritten documents – to digital media, high-speed computing (megaflops, gigaflops, teraflops, and petaflops), high-speed broadband, powerful consumer devices, and globe-spanning AI… Read more: Courtside at the Digital Revolution
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Dan Reed
Dan Reed standing by a blackberry bush
Dan Reed testifying to Congress
Dan Reed as a young professor
Dan Reed at the South Pole
EU Debate
Dan Reed in front of ILLIAC IV parts
Dan Reed leading a large panel discussion at the SC conference
Dan Reed college graduation
Dan Reed at Kaust Summit with Charlie Catlett and Garth Gibson
Dan Reed with his mother, Louvenia
Dan Reed in graduate school
Dan Reed holding blackberries in his hands
Mammoth Spring State Park

I would rather have questions that can’t be answered than answers that can’t be questioned. — Richard Feynman

Writing is perhaps the greatest of human inventions, binding together people who never knew each other, citizens of distant epochs. Books break the shackles of time. A book is proof that humans are capable of working magic. — Carl Sagan

Peter Medawar

I am often asked, ‘What made you become a scientist?’ But I can’t stand far enough away from myself to give a really satisfactory answer, for I cannot distinctly remember a time when I did not think that a scientist was the most exciting possible thing to be.” — Peter Medawar