Biography

Since 1998, Tim Lance has served as President and Chairman of NYSERNet, the New York State Education and Research Network. During his tenure, NYSERNet deployed a statewide research network backbone, connecting initially to vBNS, and then to Abilene in New York City and Buffalo. That research backbone was a crucial tool in the rapid restoration of commodity Internet service in the hours and days after 9/11. Under his leadership, over the last fourteen years NYSERNet moved from dependence on carrier circuits to control of transport, beginning with a still expanding fiber deployment for the R&E, medical, and cultural communities in New York City, and then a statewide DWDM optical infrastructure. NYSERNet created a carrier-neutral collocation facility at 32 Avenue of the Americas in Manhattan, home of MANLAN and peering point for CA*net, GÉANT, SURFNET and other national and international networks, as well as home to nodes for ESNET, NOAA, USLHCnet, and NLR. Four years ago NYSERNet created a business continuity center in Syracuse where institutions house critical IT equipment that can function in lieu of primary equipment on campus, and is now developing new uses for this space beyond the originally intended business continuity. Dr. Lance is an active participant in the Quilt, StateNets, and the EDUCAUSE Network Policy Council, which he chaired from its creation in 2005 until the reconfiguration this year. Since October, 2007 Dr. Lance has also been a member of the then newly formed Internet2 External Relations Advisory Council, and has served as that Council’s chair and on the Internet2 Board of Governors. Other Internet2 activities have included participation on writing the Strategic Plan and on search committees for the CTO, Member Relations and Communications position, the CEO search committee, and other searches. Dr. Lance recently retired as a Distinguished Service Professor of Mathematics at the University at Albany with affiliate research positions in the departments the School of Education and the College of Computing and Information. At the University he was chair of the Department of Mathematics and Statistics for fourteen years and served as the campus CIO. In New York State he has been an active member of the State’s Universal Broadband Council. These interests combine work with NYSERNet member institutions along with research work by IBM, GE, Corning and other corporate research facilities in New York to explore collaboration and cooperation on major research problems like energy, environment, and health care. Tim Lance lives in Albany with his wife Anne. Their older son Peter a doctorate in economics from Chapel Hill and younger son Tim has a doctorate in math at Albany.