Last modified: Tuesday, September 24, 2002
Brand names McRobbie vice president for research
Indiana University President Myles Brand announced Tuesday (Sept. 24) that Michael McRobbie, the university's vice president for information technology and chief information officer, will assume an additional post as IU's vice president for research, succeeding George Walker who is retiring.
"Michael has had notable success in raising Indiana University into a national leadership position in information technology infrastructure and services. I fully expect him to bring his considerable energy and expertise to this assignment, helping to expand IU's national and international presence in research, as he has so successfully done in the field of information technology," Brand said during his State of the University address.
In his present position, McRobbie has led a variety of major initiatives, including the IU/Microsoft Enterprise License Agreement, the IU/IBM Partnership in supercomputing and massive data storage, and establishment of IU as the home of Internet2 and the hub for several international research and education networks. He holds faculty appointments in the departments of computer science and philosophy at IU Bloomington and computer technology at IUPUI.
"Michael is an internationally respected researcher, and is presently principal investigator on a number of multi-million-dollar NSF grants, including the creation of IU's Digital Music Library. He has produced important work in such areas as artificial intelligence, automated theorem proving and computational logic, and high performance networking," Brand said.
"There is an extensive amount of research being done by Indiana University faculty on all campuses. I look forward to maintaining an excellent administrative infrastructure designed to support them in their scientific discovery, scholarship and creative work," McRobbie said.
McRobbie has served in his current post at IU since January 1997. Before joining IU, McRobbie was a professor in information science in the Institute of Advanced Study at the Australian National University and CEO of the Cooperative Research Center for Advanced Computational Systems.
Walker has served as both vice president for research and dean of the graduate school. Brand said a new university dean for graduate and professional studies, who will report to the vice president for research, will be appointed after a full search.
Brand said he expects that McRobbie will build on the research success the university has seen during Walker's tenure. Over the past decade, sponsored research at IU has more than tripled, going from $113 million in 1990 to $397 million in 2001.
"Indiana University is most fortunate to have had George Walker as its vice president for research and dean of the University Graduate School for these past 11 years. George's tenure has been characterized by hard work, good judgment, great loyalty to IU, excellent knowledge of the Washington scene, irrepressible optimism and a can-do attitude," Brand said.
Brand said the cost savings that result from eliminating one vice presidency position and the administrative reorganization will be reinvested in the research mission of the university.
