David B. Nelson
Director, National Coordination Office (NCO)
Networking and Information Technology Research and Development (NITRD) Program
(December 2002 – April 2005)
Dr. Nelson joined the NCO from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), where he was Deputy Chief Information Office, with primary responsibility for Information Technology Security of all NASA systems, and additional responsibilities in scientific computing and Enterprise Architecture.
He previously served as Associate Director of the Office of Energy Research in the U. S. Department of Energy (DOE.) His responsibilities there included functioning as Chief of Staff for Energy Research and directing the Office of Computational and Technology Research, whose research programs included mathematics, computer and computational science, and advanced technology. He was also responsible for operational programs in technology transfer, the Energy Sciences computer network (ESnet), several supercomputer centers including the National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center (NERSC), the DOE Small Business Innovation Research and Small Business Technology Transfer (SBIR/STTR) programs, and the DOE technical information program in the Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.)
Dr. Nelson has extensive prior involvement with the NCO. In addition to serving as NASA’s representative on the IWG, he is past co-chairman of the inter-agency Large Scale Networking Working Group. In this capacity he led the Presidential Next Generation Internet (NGI) Initiative.
He was also chairman of the predecessor committee of the IWG, the Subcommittee on High Performance Computing, Communications, and Information Technology (HPCCIT), that oversaw the Presidential High Performance Computing and Communications (HPCC) Initiative.
Dr. Nelson joined the Department of Energy in 1979 from the Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), where he was a research scientist working mainly in theoretical plasma physics and its applications to fusion energy. He also worked in environmental and defense research, where he led a group studying the effects of nuclear electromagnetic pulse. He headed the magneto- hydrodynamics theory group in the fusion energy division.
Dr. Nelson was born in Lincoln, Nebraska, and grew up in Minneapolis, Minnesota. He received his A.B. cum laude from Harvard University, majoring in engineering sciences. His graduate education was primarily at the Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences at New York University, where he received the M.S. and Ph.D. degrees, both in mathematics. He received additional graduate training in physics at Columbia University and the University of Tennessee.
He is the author of numerous papers in theoretical plasma physics, computational science, and research policy. He has twice received the President’s Meritorious Rank Award for superior sustained managerial performance.
He is a Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP.)