OARnet Interim Executive Director Paul Schopis was elected chairman of The Quilt’s board of directors. Schopis was elected vice chairman of the board last year and stepped up to the interim chairman position on Oct. 1. He will serve as chairman until Dec. 31, 2017.

Schopis is the first person to serve as chairman of the executive committee twice, previously serving on The Quilt’s executive committee and elected chair of board of directors in 2008.

“It’s an honor,” Schopis said, “because you’re selected by your peers because they see you as being able to carry forward the work membership identifies as important.”

Schopis was named chairman at The Quilt’s Fall Member Meeting, which also included co-located workshops and meetings with the National Science Foundation (NSF) Campus Cyberinfrastructure Primary Investigator (PI) workshop and the ESnet Site Coordinators Committee (ESCC) in Philadelphia Oct. 19-21.

Paul Schopis currently serves as the interim executive director of OARnet, as well as chief technology officer. As CTO, Schopis develops the strategy and implementation of OARnet’s optical fiber network and private cloud computing environment. Schopis led the team that designed OARnet’s network, one of the nation’s leading statewide, high-speed networks for research and education, and was involved in all phases of its creation.

Schopis previously served as senior engineer for Ohio’s Internet2 Technology Evaluation Center (ITEC-Ohio). Among his other successes, Schopis also was a founding member of the Advanced Testing and Monitoring Team, in partnership with ITEC-Ohio, ITEC-NC, Spirent, British Columbia Institute of Technology and San Diego Supercomputing Center.

Schopis holds a bachelor’s degree in mathematics and physical science from Ohio State University.