David Moffett

David Moffett joined Information Technology at Purdue in 2002 as its first full-time associate vice president for research computing services. An Indianapolis native, he received bachelor’s and master’s degrees in civil engineering from Purdue and worked in the engineering and information technology industries before returning to the University.

A tinkerer who loved working with computers, Moffett was one of the builders of the Advanced Computer Matrix for Engineering, a computing cluster made from 27 computers recycled from student labs, creating an inexpensive supercomputer. He later led an effort to create a 1,008-machine cluster from recycled lab PCs, along with other efforts that added substantially to the computing resources available through the Rosen Center. He was working on a book, “Software Engineering: A Rant,” taking a common-sense look at software engineering and its politics when he died unexpectedly in 2004.