COLLEGE PARK, Md., Nov. 30, 2012 /PRNewswire-iReach/ -- The University of Maryland and the Mid-Atlantic Crossroads (MAX) Board of Directors announce the appointment of Tripti Sinha as the Executive Director of MAX and the addition of several new members to the organization's leadership team. Sinha has served in a variety of technical leadership positions within the University of Maryland since 1990. She will also continue in her current roles as the Deputy Chief Information Officer for Networks and Communication Technologies within the Division of Information Technology at the University of Maryland and as Chair of the Maryland Research and Education Network (MDREN) Board. MDREN is responsible for the provision of advanced network services to K-20 and public entities within the state of Maryland.

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Sinha has formed a new leadership team to facilitate the goals of MAX and propel the organization towards new and innovative networking endeavors. Thomas Lehman joined MAX in November 2012 as Director of Research. Prior to joining MAX, Lehman worked for 14 years at the University of Southern California's Information Sciences Institute. Lehman is an experienced researcher and engineer and brings many years of research, systems development, and high-performance networking experience to MAX. In addition, Anthony Conto returned to MAX in October 2012 as Director of Administration and Member Relations after a brief retirement. Conto provides financial and organizational administration for MAX, and he is also responsible for member relations and outreach. Jaroslav Flidr began serving as MAX Director of Services in early 2012, after previously serving as MAX Senior Systems Development Engineer from 2006 to 2009. Flidr brings more than 10 years of high-performance networking and software development experience.

University of Maryland Vice President of Information Technology and CIO Brian D. Voss stated: "I am thrilled that Tripti is assuming a direct leadership role in taking MAX to even greater heights of innovation. The networking landscape is at a critical evolutionary inflection point, and Tripti, along with her new MAX leadership team, is poised to face the challenge during this exciting and disruptive time in high-performance networking."

About the Mid-Atlantic Crossroads (MAX)

The Mid-Atlantic Crossroads (MAX) is a multi-state gigaPoP consortium governed by Georgetown University, George Washington University, and the University of Maryland with its membership drawn from universities, federal research labs, and non-profit institutions in the Washington and Baltimore metropolitan areas. MAX owns and operates an all-optical, Layer 1 core network that is the foundation for a high-performance infrastructure providing state-of-the-art network technology and services to its members. MAX serves as a connector and traffic aggregator to the Internet2 national backbone and peers with other major networks. Its mission is to provide cutting-edge network connectivity for its members, tailored and generic data-transport solutions, and advanced services to accommodate and optimize large data flows, and to facilitate network and application research.

MAX has a long and rich history of participating in the development and deployment of new and advanced networking technologies while making them available to its members. It has been one of the pivotal organizations responsible for the success of early dynamic network technologies that have evolved into the currently available Dynamic Circuit Network (DCN) capabilities that run on many regional, campus, and other R&E networks. In addition, MAX is an active member of the GENI community as an infrastructure provider and a key technology developer. MAX has an established culture of early adoption of new network technologies, and this work is continuing with current research projects focused on development of Software Defined Network (SDN) technologies. For more information about MAX, please visit www.maxgigapop.net.

Media Contact: Phyllis Dickerson Johnson, Director of Communications and Marketing, Division of Information Technology, University of Maryland, 301.405.4491, phyllis@umd.edu

Media Contact: Phyllis Johnson University of Maryland Division of Information Technology, 301.405.4491, phyllis@umd.edu

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SOURCE University of Maryland Division of Information Technology