BIG DATA

Ana Preston, Internet2’s current Director for Regional and State Network Relations, and interim Director for International Relations, has been named Internet2’s new Executive Director for Member Relations and Communications (MRC).

In this role, Ana will assume management responsibility for the organization’s member engagement and communications activities. Ana will work closely with members, partners, and community representatives to evaluate and promote the community’s advanced cyberinfrastructure services and initiatives that support research and educational missions. She will also work with the Internet2 executive team and its governance to coordinate member outreach and appropriate communications to key stakeholder groups and the public.

“We are delighted that Ana will become a key member of the Internet2 management team. Ana’s dedication over the past 8 years in working with our members to ensure they are continually engaged and informed has resulted in many new and exciting collaborations in the Internet2 community.” said Doug Van Houweling, Internet2 president and CEO. “In this new role, I know Ana will have great success in expanding Internet2’s community engagement to ensure the broad membership is actively supported. Ana will work with the membership to meet today’s needs and position us to anticipate the rapidly evolving nature of the research and education environment.”

Ana joined Internet2 in 2001 as Program Manager for International Relations. In her five years in that role, she helped to bring more than 15 international partners to Internet2, while leading efforts to connect and collaborate with emerging national research and education networks. She then took on the role of Senior Program Manager for FiberCo, a subsidiary of Internet2 that serves as a dark fiber holding company, where she was responsible for brokering dark fiber acquisitions and managing consulting and professional network services to regional optical networking initiatives in the United States and Canada.

Currently, Ana serves as Director, State and Regional Network Relations. In this position, she leads efforts to engage, collaborate and partner with the network member organizations that both provide connectivity to Internet2’s network infrastructure and play an important role in Internet2 activities and governance. In this capacity, she has successfully implemented a proactive communication and engagement plan with this segment of the Internet2 membership.

Prior to joining Internet2, Ana worked for the CIO’s office at the University of Tennessee-Knoxville where she was responsible for collaborating with faculty and researchers on test deployments of next-generation technologies with a focus on assessing the utility and application development issues associated with installing new campus network technology. Ana also supported the development and provided initial planning for the Tennessee optical networking infrastructure.

“I am delighted to be taking on this greatly expanded role for Internet2 – an organization and a community that I believe is helping to support truly breakthrough innovation for research and education and for our broader society,” said Preston. “I am excited to join the executive team of Internet2 and look forward to working closely with our membership and our partners worldwide to ensure we continue to meet the needs of the community as well as provide a pathway for their future discoveries.”

Tim Lance, president of NYSERNet and member of the executive search advisory committee said, “Many of us in the research and education community know Ana well for her contributions in a spectrum of roles at Internet2. Though her assignments were quite varied, two factors were common: the passion and absolute integrity she brought to each Internet2 assignment, and the importance she gave to each person and organization she dealt with.  We could not have hoped for better traits in this new role.”

Ana’s new appointment will begin December 1, 2009.