[CAnet - news] Michael McRobbie named president of Indiana University

For more information on this item please visit my blog at 
http://billstarnaud.blogspot.com/
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[It was great to see the University of Indiana recognized the importance of
IT in research and education by naming Michael McRobbie as their 18th
president.  Michael has been an influential leader in the global university
research and education community and has helped propel UI to the forefront
of various technology developments such as community fiber projects, grids
and instrument web services. Some excerpts --BSA]


http://newsinfo.iu.edu/news/page/normal/5034.html

IU Trustees select Michael A. McRobbie as 18th president

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
March 1, 2007

Read McRobbie's comments following the IU Board of Trustees' vote:
http://newsinfo.iu.edu/news/page/normal/5043.html

View a photo gallery of today's events:
http://newsinfo.iu.edu/web/page/normal/5051.html

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. -- The Trustees of Indiana University today (March 1)
unanimously approved the appointment of Michael A. McRobbie as the 18th
president of the 187-year-old institution with eight campuses and more than
97,000 students.

McRobbie, currently the interim provost and vice president for academic
affairs at IU Bloomington, has been a senior administrator at IU for 10
years. With an education grounded both in philosophy and science, he came to
IU in January 1997 as vice president for information technology and chief
information officer. Six years later, he was given the additional
responsibilities of vice president for research.

McRobbie, 56, a native of Australia, will replace Adam W. Herbert, who
announced last year that he would not serve beyond the end of his contract. 

"Michael has been the driving force behind many of our proudest
accomplishments," said Steve Ferguson, president of the Board of Trustees.
"Michael has demonstrated over and over that he not only knows what it takes
to be one of the world's leading research universities, he has the ability
and perseverance to make it happen. Michael's leadership has contributed to
our increased stature in such key scientific fields as informatics and basic
life sciences research. It was his vision that led to IU building the best
information technology infrastructure of any university in the nation. And
as provost at Bloomington, he has stimulated a renewed emphasis and energy
in our many highly ranked arts and humanities programs."

McRobbie has overseen the development of several major research projects and
initiatives for the university and led an extensive transformation in
information technology, including development of an integrated
information-technology infrastructure that links all IU campuses, providing
faculty members with a variety of new tools for research and a rich
computing environment for students.

Trustee Tom Reilly said the nine trustees were impressed with McRobbie's
background of intellectual accomplishment and academic leadership. He added
that they were particularly enthusiastic about McRobbie's interest in
expanding IU's international initiatives, his desire to bring together
faculties on all campuses to work together more effectively and his
recognition that IU must be a leader in economic and educational development
across the state.

Since being appointed interim provost and vice president for academic
affairs at IUB, McRobbie has pursued campus priorities for the arts and
humanities, life sciences and international activities, as well as the
recruitment and retention of students and faculty. He also has developed an
international strategic plan to help create and nurture global relationships
that support the university's academic programs and provide opportunities
for faculty and students. He led university delegations to China and Japan
last year, which resulted in cooperative research ventures with several of
those nations' premier universities.

When McRobbie came to IU 10 years ago, then President Myles Brand asked him
to create a modern information technology environment throughout the
university that would make the university a leader "in absolute terms for
uses and applications of IT."

As a first step, McRobbie prepared the IU Information Technology Strategic
Plan, which identified goals and objectives for the ambitious vision. As
part of the restructuring process, he created University Information
Technology Services to support the academic and administrative work of the
university and played a major role in the creation of the School of
Informatics, one of the nation's first institutions to combine all aspects
of information technology into a single discipline.

McRobbie also directed the development of I-Light, an integrated, high-speed
optical fiber network that linked IU Bloomington, IUPUI and Purdue
University -- and now includes other universities -- providing students and
faculty with a rich research and computing environment. His foresight led to
IU's involvement and management of Internet2's Abilene network, a national,
high-speed data network that supports research among universities across the
country and has fostered relationships for high-speed connections around the
world. He also founded IU's Pervasive Technology Laboratories, funded in
1999 by a $30 million grant from the Lilly Endowment.

When his tenure as vice president for research began, McRobbie focused his
attention on increasing external funding for IU programs. He has been
instrumental in securing multimillion dollar grants funding for life
sciences initiatives such as the Indiana Metabolomics and Cytomics
Initiative (METACyt) and the Indiana Genomics Initiative at IU (INGEN), as
well as for the New Frontiers in the Arts and Humanities Program, which
supports the creation of major new works of art in a variety of genres.

In 2006, he helped the university reach a deal with IBM to acquire one of
the world's 20 most powerful supercomputers, ensuring IU's continued
leadership in national research initiatives such as the National Science
Foundation's TeraGrid, which links the nation's most powerful
supercomputers.

McRobbie came to IU from the Institute of Advanced Study at the Australian
National University, where he was a professor of information technology and
chief executive officer of the Cooperative Research Center for Advanced
Computational Systems.

In addition to his senior administrative responsibilities at IU, McRobbie
holds professorships in computer science, informatics and philosophy, and
adjunct professorships in cognitive science and information science on the
IUB campus. He also is a professor of computer technology in the Purdue
School of Engineering at the Indiana University-Purdue University
Indianapolis campus.

A principal investigator on numerous grants, his research interests include
artificial intelligence, automated theorem proving and computational logic,
high performance networking and the non-numerical applications of parallel
supercomputing especially in symbolic computation. McRobbie earned a
bachelor of arts degree from the University of Queensland and a doctoral
degree at Australia National University.



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