Michael J. Ackerman received his Ph.D. from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, in Biomedical Engineering. After graduation he served as a research physiologist in the Hyperbaric Medicine and Physiology Department, Naval Medical Research Institute, where he studied the effects of the hyperbaric environment on neurophysiology and behavior. He later became head of the Institute's Biomedical Engineering and Computing Branch responsible for the application of computers to real time medical data analysis and the control and monitoring of diving systems. Dr. Ackerman came to the National Library of Medicine in 1987. He served as the Chief of the Educational Technology Branch of the Lister Hill National Center for Biomedical Communications, applying interactive technology to medical education, and as the Associate Director for Specialized Information Services responsible for the Library's non-bibliographic data bases. He is currently NLM's Assistant Director for High Performance Computing and Communications, providing guidance for NLM's telemedicine, distance collaboratory, and imaging interests. He holds academic appointments as an Associate Professor in the Department of Computer Medicine at George Washington University and as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Medical Informatics at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences, and has published over 140 papers and book chapters.