• Cloud Forum History
• Hosting the Cloud Forum
• 2025 Cloud Forum Organizing Committee
• Get Involved

History

In 2015 Sarah Christen, director of IT Infrastructure at Cornell University, recognized the need to bring together those who were tasked with investigating hyper-scale computing for their respective higher ed institutions. As many schools were starting down this road, too many were traveling alone. Sarah pulled together colleagues from the Cloud Computing Community Group, the Common Solutions Group and elsewhere to develop and implement the idea.

The first Cloud Forum took place in November 2015 in the auditorium of the Statler Hotel on the Cornell campus with representatives of 45 institutions gathered in a single room for a day and half. In that intimate setting the conversations were candid, the lessons shared valuable and the community built lasting. This was higher ed IT at its most collaborative.

The organizers knew there would be interest from vendors to attend. They agreed to invite representatives of the top platforms in use but with strict rules of engagement. They were invited to come listen and learn. No presentations. No participation in discussions. It is a unique opportunity for deeper understanding.

Each year the attendees express a desire to expand the event’s reach to more topics and more institutions while maintaining its character. The Statler Auditorium seats 90 people and that hard cap necessitated limiting the number of people each institution could send. Schools were limited to three people, the vendors to two.

In 2020 the COVID-19 Pandemic forced the Cloud Forum online, stretching it from one week to an entire school year, via monthly online sessions. The event maintained its mix of presentations, panels, lightning talks and research presentations. It even had an Unconference, a discussion format added in 2019, and greatly valued.

1n 2021 the Cloud Forum returned to Cornell and the Statler for the last time. In-person attendance was close to pre-pandemic levels and through the very capable efforts of the Cornell AV team, much of the event was made available to remote participants and presenters.

At the end of the 2021 Cloud Forum, organizers announced that Internet2 would take the Cloud Forum into its care and facilitate its movement to other institutions. Washington University in St. Louis bravely raised its hand to volunteer to be the first institution to carry on the impressive legacy created by Sarah Christen back in 2015. The event was a great success.

Responding to community concerns about an overloaded fall conference schedule, the Cloud Forum shifted to a spring event. An abbreviated, but highly successful was held at Emory University in 2023. In 2024 the event returned to a full 2.5-day Cloud Forum hosted by Stanford University. We hope you will join us as we continue this new chapter of the Cloud Forum.

Hosting the Cloud Forum

The Cloud Forum now moves from institution to institution, giving you, the community, an opportunity to showcase your campus and share some hospitality with your peers. If your institution would like to know more about hosting a future Cloud Forum, read Hosting the Cloud Forum to learn what is involved in hosting, and reach out to Bob Flynn (bflynn@internet2.edu) to discuss.

The 2025 Cloud Forum Organizing Committee

The Cloud Forum relies on significant volunteer effort. Here is your hard-working 2025 Organizing Committee:

Name	Organization
Oscar Apaydinli	New York University (host support)
John Bailey	Washington University in St. Louis
Tim Champ	University of Maryland – Baltimore County
Sarah Christen	Cornell University (founder & spirit guide)
Damian Doyle	University of Maryland – Baltimore County
Simon Fairey	Princeton University
Phil Fenstermacher	William & Mary University
Bob Flynn	Internet2 (chair)
Todd Haddaway	University of Maryland – Baltimore County
Valerie Johnson	Internet2 (staff support)
Marissa Jules	University of California San Francisco
Lucrecia Kim-Boswell	Stanford University
Daniel Kuk	New York University (host support)
David Lacey	J Paul Getty Trust
Rob Larmon	Loyola Marymount University
Emma Levett	Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Andrew Marcontell	Texas A & M University
Chris Manley	Cornell University
Jomes Monek	Lehigh University
Kevin Muller	Fordham University
Sean O’Brien	Internet2 (sponsor)
Brian Pasquini	University of Pittsburgh
Todd Prins	University of Nevada Las Vegas
Rick Rhoades	The Pennsylvania State University
Matthew Rich	Northwestern University
Shruthi Sreenivasa Murthy	St. Louis University
Jennifer Sparrow	New York University (host)
Eric Vokral	New York University (host support)
Nick Weber	National Institutes of Health
Nidhi Yadav	Internet2 (staff support)

Getting Involved with the Cloud Forum

If you would like to join the committee planning a future Cloud Forum, please contact Bob Flynn (bflynn@internet2.edu)

Other Community Efforts

Join this and other community efforts, including regular monthly calls and conversations on the Cloud Computing Community Group (CCCG) email list and Slack workspace.

Email list

1. To join, you can follow the instructions on the Educause CCCG page
2. You will receive a confirmation email within a few minutes. Click on the confirmation link within the email
3. You will receive another email to confirm that you are now subscribed to the list

Slack

1. Join the CCCG Slack Workspace
2. Add the #he-cloud-forum Channel from the ‘Add channels’ menu
3. Start chatting!

Additional Resources

Additional resources can be found on the Higher Education Cloud Community site hosted by Internet2.