Narragansett, RI
The Open Source Project for Network Data Access Protocol, or OPeNDAP, today announced that its current president, Peter Fox, is taking a seat on OPeNDAP's board of directors and that David Fulker (currently a director) is becoming the corporation's president, effective immediately. The president's role (chief executive officer) was assumed voluntarily by Fox in May 2006, complementing other work as a prominent scientist and information technologist, currently at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) in Troy, New York. Fulker has led a number of information-technology endeavors, most notably (as founding director) the Unidata Program at the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado. OPeNDAP is a not-for-profit corporation that develops and supports systems and software in widespread use (at prominent institutions such as NASA, NOAA and DOE) for Internet-based "publication" of complex scientific data on large scales. The Fox/Fulker role exchange occurs as OPeNDAP repositions its business model to leverage its service-provision strengths, while becoming less vulnerable to the uncertainties of funding for leading-edge research and development.