President Mark Schlissel announced the appointment of Ravi Pendse as vice president for information technology and chief information officer.
The five-year appointment was unanimously approved Thursday by the Board of Regents.
Pendse will begin Aug. 1. Andrew Rosenberg will remain as the interim leader until then and assist with the transition before returning to devote his full attention to his position as chief information officer in Michigan Medicine.
“Dr. Pendse has extensive experience as a successful and collaborative university leader. He understands the complex technological needs of a comprehensive university, having worked in higher education as a researcher, teacher and adviser to students,” Schlissel said.
Pendse will serve as an executive officer of the university and provide universitywide leadership and strategic direction for information technology.
“I am incredibly excited, honored and grateful to have the opportunity to represent the outstanding technology professionals across the University of Michigan,” Pendse said. “Working collaboratively, we will help support and enhance U-M’s consummate research, teaching, learning and health-care mission.
“I am committed to ensuring that every person within the U-M family feels connected to our collective purpose to provide user-centric services, outstanding support for teaching and research, and advance the best and appropriate technology.”
Pendse is currently the vice president for information computing and information services and chief information officer at Brown University. In this position, he is a member of the president’s cabinet and oversees the technology infrastructure throughout Brown’s campus, encompassing a combined annual budget of more than $40 million. Pendse also is a Brown University professor of computer science and engineering.
Over the course of his career — which includes professorships at Wichita State University and Northern Arizona University — he has secured more than $21 million in external research grants, published numerous scholarly articles and received several teaching awards.
He has extensive experience in technology leadership, enterprise resource planning projects, change management, network design and security, digital classroom design and library systems.
His research interests are in the areas of the internet of things, cybersecurity and policies and ad hoc sensor networks. He has published more than 140 papers in peer-reviewed conference proceedings and journals. He has worked with the Federal Aviation Administration to evaluate the impact on security from networked airplanes.
Pendse serves on the higher education advisory group at Microsoft and on the board of High Touch Technologies, a technology solutions company for small and midsize businesses. He also is a Watson Institute Faculty Fellow and serves on the Cisco Global Advisory Committee and Aruba’s CIO Advisory Board.
He has won numerous awards for innovative and outstanding teaching.
Prior to joining Brown University, Pendse filled several positions at Wichita State University, rising through the ranks from a teaching fellow to a professor and vice president for information technology and chief information officer.
He began his academic career as an assistant professor in the College of Engineering and Technology at Northern Arizona University.
Pendse has a Bachelor of Science degree in electronics and communication engineering from Osmania University in Hyderabad, India. He earned a Master of Science degree and Ph.D. in electrical engineering from Wichita State University.
