Wizard of Kansas

Community of Science

Univ. of Kansas

CURRENT (updated 10/5/06):

Jerry retired from the University of Kansas on August 31, 2004 having served the University for 23 years. He now serves as a private consultant in computing and computer networking. Consulting information is available at: http://www.wizardofkansas.com

From January 2003 to August 2004 Jerry was on special assignment as Executive Director of the Great Plains Network. The Great Plains Network is a 7-state network consortium created in 1997 for
"... advanced networking technology in support of collaborative research and education ... "

From July 2001 to December 2002 Jerry served as Planning Coordinator for Kan-ed, a statewide networking project assigned to the Kansas Board of Regents.

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH:

At the December, 2002 Information Technology Leadership Conference in Topeka, Kansas Jerry was presented the Kansas Leadership in Technology Award by the Kansas Department of Education for his work with the KAN-ED statewide network project for the Kansas Board of Regents Office.

At the October, 2001 ACM SIGUCCS conference in Portland, Oregon Jerry was inducted into the SIGUCCS (Special Interest Group for University & College Computing Services) Hall of Fame.

At the October, 2000 EDUCAUSE conference in Nashville, Tennessee Jerry received an "Excellence in Leadership in the Profession" award.

Jerry Niebaum was Principal Investigator for a National Science Foundation EPSCoR grant for creating the "Great Plains Network for Earth Systems Science," grant #EPS-9720159. This project connects North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma, and Arkansas with a comprehensive high speed network to support earth systems science. Scientists have high speed access to the data resources of the EROS Data Center in South Dakota as well as the data resources at research institutions within each state. NSF funding was $1,479,980 over two years from September, 1997.

He was also Principal Investigator for NSF grant #ANI-9810087, "High Performance Network Connection in Support of Meritorious Research at the University of Kansas." NSF funding was $400,400 over three years from September, 1998.

In 1993 Jerry was Principal Investigator for National Science Foundation grant #NCR-9300289 for the creation of the Kansas Research and Education Network (KANREN) and has served as Chair of the KanREN Executive Committee. The goal of KanREN was to connect schools and libraries in Kansas with worldwide electronic information resources. More than 50 institutions are currently members of KanREN. NSF funding for the original grant and supplemental grant #NCR-9420711 totaled $793,212.

He was one of four Principal Investigators for another NSF grant #76-18172, "A Prototype Information Processing Program and System to Enhance the Training of Young Researchers." He has led seminars and workshops for national conferences of EDUCOM, CAUSE, Association for Computing Machinery - SIGUCCS, and Snowmass Seminars on Academic Computing. Jerry began his work in computing in 1960 and in higher education computing in 1966. He was Director of Academic Computing Services at the University of Kansas from 1981 to 1999.



Questions or comments: mailto:niebaum@ku.edu