With a PhD in Civil Engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Usama El Shamy is an experienced educator, professor, and now interim chair of the civil and the environmental engineering department in the Lyle School of Engineering at Southern Methodist University. In his early career, El Shamy specialized in the computational simulation of earthquakes, and has developed skills in civil and structural engineering design and geotechnical engineering, which he has translated to data center research. His current focus is geothermal energy, an emerging technique that can be applied to achieve greater data center resilience and carbon reduction.