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Provost announces new library, information organization
Provost Satish K. Tripathi announced today formation of a new information and libraries services/CIO organization within the university.
The new organization will be led by a vice president for information and library services/CIO, who will report to Tripathi. The reorganization will facilitate collaboration and synergy between UB information technology and library resources to create a state-of-the-art library system befitting a 21st century research university, Tripathi said, as well as serve to drive information technology innovations for the university. To complete this reorganization, the Center for Computational Research (CCR) will become part of UB IT.
With this structural move, CCR will be better able to contribute to IT innovation supporting UB faculty research and student education. A search for the new vice president will begin soon. As a result of this structural realignment, UB is suspending immediately its search for a vice provost/director for university libraries.
“After considering various scenarios, President Simpson and I decided it is in the best interest of our university to create a new position that will facilitate inter-organizational synergies and create more productive and efficient organizational alignment,” Tripathi said.
As the search for the new vice president is under way and progresses, Thomas Furlani, director of CCR, will serve as interim associate vice president for information technology, effective May 7; H. Austin Booth, director of collections and research for the Arts and Sciences Libraries, will serve as interim associate vice president for university libraries, effective June 1. Furlani and Booth will report to the provost.
“I am very pleased that Tom Furlani and Austin Booth have stepped up to fulfill these important leadership roles at UB,” Tripathi said. “Their expertise and knowledge assures that vital university resources will continue to operate at a very high level as we proceed with this transition.”
Furlani has more than 20 years’ experience in research computing and visualization. Since 2006, he has managed the day-to-day operations and overseen the research activities of the CCR, one of the nation’s a leading academic supercomputing and visualization centers. His research focuses on development and application of computational methods to study structure and reactivity in molecular systems. He joined the UB faculty in 1994 as a research associate professor of chemistry and served as associate director of the CCR from 1998 to 2006. He holds a doctorate in physical chemistry from UB.
Booth, who holds the rank of full librarian, joined UB in 1997 and received the Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Librarianship in 2005. Her research focuses on digital culture, and on higher education and information technology. She has taught in the English Department and the Women’s Studies Program at the University of Michigan. She earned a master’s degree in library and information science from the University of California-Berkeley and a master’s degree in English from the University of Michigan. She is pursuing a doctoral degree in English from the University of Michigan.
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