Senior Vice President Dan Reed announced that Mike Kirby will serve as the inaugural executive director of the Utah Informatics Initiative, effective Sept. 1, 2019.

Kirby is currently the interim director of the U’s Scientific Computing and Imaging Institute, a professor of computer science, and an adjunct professor in the departments of biomedical engineering and mathematics. He holds additional leadership roles as an associate director in the School of Computing and director of the Center for Multiscale Modeling of Electronic Materials.

Kirby will work with Reed and other campus leaders to develop short- and long-term goals for the U’s interdisciplinary informatics initiatives, strategies for achieving these goals and for measuring progress. Some areas of focus include, but are not limited to:

• One U informatics envisioning and strategy
• Courses and educational programs, degree and non-degree, on-campus and online                         courses, minors and hybrid degrees
• Scholarship and research opportunities, both disciplinary and interdisciplinary
• Industry partnerships in informatics education and economic development
• Informatics faculty hiring
• Staffing and informatics support
• Organizational structures and opportunities
• Informatics steering committee coordination

Kirby received his doctorate at Brown University. He joined the U as an assistant professor in 2002. He became a full professor here in 2014. Kirby’s current research interests include scientific and data computing, uncertainty quantification, high-performance computing, scientific and data visualization, and computational science and engineering. He is a world leader in synergistically combining applied mathematics and computer science to real-world engineering problems.

“In short, Mike has the perfect background for this new assignment and I hope you’ll join me in congratulating him,” Reed said.