Patrick Dreher

Patrick Dreher is presently the Chief Domain Scientist for Cloud Computing at the Renaissance Computing Institute and Adjunct Professor of Computer Science at North Carolina State University. Prior to that he served Director of Advanced Computing Infrastructure and Systems at RENCI. He also serves as the co-chair of the Educause Net@EDU Campus Cyberinfrastructure Working Group. Prior to joining RENCI, Dr. Dreher held several senior positions at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He was the Project Director for the IT Strategic Planning and Resource Coordination Initiative and the Deputy Chair of an Institute-wide IT-Strategic Planning and Resource Coordinating Council (IT-SPARCC). He was responsible for identifying and assessing the strategic IT needs and requirements throughout the Institute and recommending to the senior administration where the Institute may be able to provide research technology and cyberinfrastructure support and coordination for faculty research programs and projects. In addition to his IT responsibilities he served as the Associate Director at the Laboratory for Nuclear Science for 13 years. Prior to joining MIT, Dr. Dreher was the Head of Budget and Planning for several major R&D projects at the Department of Energy's Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory.

Dr. Dreher is a theoretical nuclear physicist and holds a continuing appointment as a Research Scientist at the MIT Laboratory for Nuclear Science. His research interests are focused on understanding the basic properties of the strong nuclear force using numerical calculations with high performance computational hardware and software. Dr. Dreher received his B.S. in physics from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, an M.S. in physics from the University of Chicago, and his Ph.D. in physics from the University of Illinois at Urbana. He also earned an M.B.A. from Rensselaer with a concentration in R&D management.