Fusion-io has appointed Dr. Pankaj Mehra as CTO and senior vice president. Mr. Mehra, who had been advising the Fusion-io office of the CTO in recent months, will oversee the research of core technology, and develop strategies for collaborating with Fusion-io partners and industry standards associations.

Mr. Mehra succeeds Neil Carson, who served as Fusion-io CTO since March 2010. Mr. Carson is now transitioning to the role of Fusion-io Asia Pacific (APAC) CTO and Vice President. 

Mr. Mehra was recently senior vice president and CTO at Whodini, a big data engagement analytics company he co-founded in 2010. In an earlier role, Mr. Mehra directed the development of persistent memory at Compaq, leading to his appointment as a distinguished technologist at Hewlett Packard, and subsequently chief scientist of HP Labs Russia. He previously chaired the InfiniBand Trade Association’s Management Working Group and contributed to the 1.0 specification.

Mr. Mehra holds a Ph.D. in Computer Science from the University of Illinois, and has held prior academic and research positions at NASA, IIT Delhi, IBM, and University of California.

Mr. Mehra wrote a blog post on his thoughts on joining Fusion-io, which you may find interesting.

[Image courtesy: Dr. Pankaj Mehra]