Pierce Cantrell is the vice president and associate provost for Information Technology (IT) at Texas A&M. Cantrell is the university's chief information officer responsible for academic and administrative computing, computer networks, public television and radio, classroom instructional technology, technology mediated instruction support and the statewide TTVN wide area data and videoconference network. Prior to assuming his current title in 2006, he served as the associate provost for IT from 1998-2006.

Cantrell joined the department in 1982, where he is an associate professor. He served as assistant department head from 1992-98 and speaker of the Faculty Senate in 1995-96. He received the B.S., M.S. and Ph.D. degrees, all in electrical engineering, from the Georgia Institute of Technology in 1970, 1971 and 1981, respectively. From 1976-1981 he served on active military duty with the Computer Networking Support Branch in the intelligence division at the NORAD/Cheyenne Mountain complex.

Cantrell's recent research interests include multilayer, IP-based videoconferen-cing where individual layers are transmitted on separate multicast channels. Users automatically add and drop layers based on the current bandwidth.

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