The scientist regarded as the person responsible for making the Oak Ridge National Laboratory the world's center for high performance computing is leaving.
"I'd like to thank East Tennessee for the blessings we have enjoyed here," he said.
Dr. Thomas Zacharia has been appointed executive vice president of research and development for the Qatar Foundation. He'll be promoting and advancing the organization's research initiatives.
He says he's excited about his future and the future of his field.
"Computing allows us to design better experiments, design better materials, get more accurate results, faster, better cheaper, and I think the computing capability will continue to grow into the future allowing us to do things even better. So I'm excited about the future," he said.
Zacharia first joined ORNL back in 1987.
While he is going to work in Qatar, he says his home will always be in Oak Ridge. He says he and his wife are not selling their house and plan to later retire here.
He'll start his new position in September.