University at Buffalo - The State University of New York

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By MORGAN HOOK

Published: March 17, 2011

SUNY Chancellor Nancy L. Zimpher announced today that she has recommended UB Provost Satish K. Tripathi as the next president of the university.

Zimpher has asked the SUNY Board of Trustees to convene a special meeting in April in Buffalo to formally consider Tripathi’s appointment as president. She also named Tripathi as UB’s officer-in-charge, effective immediately, with all of the responsibilities and authority of a campus president.

“It is my great pleasure to recommend Dr. Satish Tripathi as the next president of the University at Buffalo,” said Zimpher. “Dr. Tripathi’s international reputation as an accomplished researcher and transformative leader in higher education makes him ideally suited to serve as president of the University at Buffalo.

“Major public research universities like UB provide access to high quality, affordable education and engage in research that helps build vibrant communities at home and across the globe. Dr. Tripathi will provide outstanding leadership for UB as it carries out this important mission.”

Tripathi said he was honored to be recommended by Zimpher to be UB’s next president. “It would be my distinct privilege to lead our remarkable university, which is recognized for its tradition of excellence and has an extraordinary future ahead.”

Zimpher thanked John B. Simpson for his leadership as UB’s 14th president and for staying on beyond his intended departure date of Jan. 15. She also commended UB Council and Search Committee Chair Jeremy M. Jacobs for conducting an efficient and successful presidential search.

Over the past seven months, Jacobs said the search committee reviewed the credentials of 68 candidates, representing a diverse national and international pool from a wide range of academic disciplines and professional experiences. Jacobs, who has been involved in multiple presidential searches at UB, noted that this was the most competitive candidate pool he has seen. All the finalists were pre-eminent scholars who served very successfully in such administrative leadership roles as provost, vice president for research, vice president for health sciences and dean—all at leading institutions in the Association of American Universities (AAU) and all with an impressive portfolio of administrative accomplishments.

“From this exceptional group,” Jacobs said, “Dr. Tripathi quickly emerged as a front runner in the search committee's review process. His impressive body of work as a scholar and academic leader, and his compelling vision for UB's future made him the council's unanimous recommendation to lead our university. On behalf of the UB Council and our outstanding search committee, we are pleased that Chancellor Zimpher is endorsing the appointment of Dr. Tripathi as UB's 15th president. I am confident that he will carry forth and strengthen UB's legacy of excellence."

An internationally recognized computer scientist, Tripathi, 60, joined UB as provost on July 1, 2004, after serving as dean of the Bourns College of Engineering at the University of California-Riverside.

Among his many accomplishments at UB, Tripathi was one of the principal creators of the UB 2020 strategic plan to achieve academic and research excellence. He led the recruitment of many prominent faculty to the university and oversaw a significant increase in the number of faculty hired to develop and enhance strengths in key areas of research and scholarly activity. As a result, the university achieved significant growth in research expenditures and federally awarded research grants, putting UB in league with the top national research universities in the United States.

Under Tripathi’s leadership, the academic profile of UB’s undergraduate and graduate students improved significantly, as the university enrolled its most academically talented freshman class in each of the past three years. Tripathi also led efforts to enrich the educational experiences of UB undergraduate students by introducing programs designed to provide them with opportunities to engage in learning and research with UB’s top faculty. He also is overseeing development of new learning and library facilities on campus, and new “living-learning environments” within the new John & Editha Kapoor Hall, Barbara and Jack Davis Hall, and William R. Greiner Hall, all under construction as part of “Building UB,” the university’s comprehensive physical plan.

Tripathi also led a strategic planning process for UB’s international programs that has led to significant expansion of the university’s international presence and the continued globalization of its three Western New York campuses. He signed a memorandum of understanding in 2005 with Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to establish the Indo-U.S. Inter-University Collaborative Initiative in Higher Education and Research. This memorandum led to a partnership between UB and Amrita University on collaborative activities that include dual-master’s-degree programs in management and computer science. UB’s educational programs in Singapore, in partnership with the Singapore Institute of Management, also experienced significant growth under Tripathi.

Prior to joining UC-Riverside in 1997, Tripathi was a professor in the Department of Computer Science at the University of Maryland, where his 19-year tenure on the faculty member included serving as chair from 1988-95. He was a visiting professor at the University of Paris-Sud in France and the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg in Germany while at the University of Maryland.

Tripathi graduated top of his class from Banaras Hindu University in India in 1968. In addition to a doctorate in computer science from the University of Toronto in 1979, he holds three master's degrees—one in computer science from the University of Toronto (1976) and two in statistics from the University of Alberta (1974) and Banaras Hindu University (1970). He was awarded the honorary doctorate of sciences from the prestigious Indian Institute of Information Technology, Allahabad, the university’s highest degree.

Tripathi has published more than 200 scholarly papers, supervised more than 30 doctoral and postdoctoral students and served on program committees of numerous international conferences. He is a fellow of the IEEE and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He is a member of the board of directors of the Buffalo Urban League. 

A native of India, Tripathi would become the first international-born president in UB’s history, a fitting distinction for one of the most international universities in the U.S. UB is ranked 12th in the percentage of international students enrolled among all U.S. campuses, according to the Institute of International Education. Nearly 5,000 of UB’s nearly 29,000 students are international.