Jeff Crowder honored with emeritus status
Jeff Crowder M.A. ’96, executive director for partnerships and research support at Virginia Tech’s Division of Information Technology, has been conferred the title of executive director emeritus by the Virginia Tech Board of Visitors.
The emeritus title may be conferred on retired faculty members who are specially recommended to the board by Virginia Tech President Tim Sands in recognition of their exemplary service to the university. Nominated individuals who are approved by the board receive a copy of the resolution and a certificate of appreciation.
A member of the Virginia Tech community for more than 40 years, Crowder provided leadership in the development of large, impactful outreach programs that enabled early high-performance internet access to support research, education, community development, and economic growth across Virginia and the region.
Crowder created and oversaw Network Virginia, which extended high-performance internet connectivity to institutions in every county in the commonwealth. He played a significant supporting role at the national level in the formation of Internet2 in 1998 and for many years, served as Virginia’s executive representative to the technology consortium. He co-founded the Mid-Atlantic Research Infrastructure Alliance Inc. in 2012, spearheading many successive increases in the speed and capacity of the networks under MARIA's control, and serving as its executive officer and board vice chairman until his retirement. He served on the boards of National LambdaRail Inc. and The Quilt Inc.
He received a National Science Foundation grant to build the nation’s first gigabit point of presence, known as GigaPOP, providing an exchange point and an on-ramp for national and international research and education networks.
Crowder served as principal investigator, co-principal investigator, or project lead on numerous initiatives, resulting in more than $62 million in external funding in support of Virginia Tech.
Crowder received his bachelor’s degree from the University of Virginia and a master’s degree from Virginia Tech.
