George Strawn

Computer policy nestor

Dr. George O. Strawn served as the Director of the Federal Networking and Information Technology Research and Development (NITRD) National Coordination Office (NCO) between November 2009 and June 2015. He also served as the Co-chair of the NITRD Subcommittee of the National Science and Technology Council (NSTC) Committee on Technology (CoT), where he oversaw the operations and activities of the NITRD Program.

Dr. Strawn was on assignment to the NCO from the National Science Foundation (NSF), where
he served as Chief Information Officer (CIO). As the CIO for NSF, he guided the agency in the development and design of innovative information technology, working to enable the NSF staff and the international community of scientists, engineers, and educators to improve business practices and pursue new methods of scientific communication, collaboration, and decision-making.

Prior to his appointment as NSF CIO, Dr. Strawn served as the executive officer of the NSF Directorate for Computer and Information Science and Engineering (CISE) and as Acting Assistant Director for CISE. Previously, Dr. Strawn had served as the Director of the CISE Division of Advanced Networking Infrastructure and Research, where he led NSF’s efforts in the Presidential Next Generation Internet Initiative. During his years at NSF, Dr. Strawn was an active participant in activities of the interagency IT R&D program that is now called NITRD.

Prior to coming to NSF, Dr. Strawn was a Computer Science faculty member at Iowa State University (ISU) for a number of years. He also served there as Director of the ISU Computation Center and Chair of the ISU Computer Science Department. Under his leadership, ISU became a charter member of MIDNET, a regional NSFNET network; he led the creation of a thousand-workstation academic system based on an extension of the MIT Athena system; and the ISU Computer Science department was accredited by the then-new Computer Science Accreditation Board.

Dr. Strawn received his Ph.D. in Mathematics from Iowa State University and his BA Magna Cum Laude in Mathematics and Physics from Cornell College. He was elected as a Fellow of AAAS in October 2012.